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INSURGENT MEXICO 


5 
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14 aN 
Pera. Ae 

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INSURGENT 
MEXICO 


JOHN REED 


NEW YORK AND LONDON 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1914 


Coprrricut, 1914, By . 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


EPISODES IN THIS BOOK ARE ALSO PROTECTED BY THE 
FOLLOWING COPYRIGHT: 


Corrrigut, 1914, By Tok METROPOLITAN MaGazine CoMPpANY 


ITRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


A ( ad 
To 
PROFESSOR CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND 
of 


HARVARD UNIVERSITY 


Dear Copey: 

I remember you thought it strange that my first trip 
abroad didn’t make me want to write about what I saw 
there. But since then I have visited a country which stim- 
ulated me to express it in words. And as I wrote these 
impressions of Mexico I couldn’t help but think that I 
never would have seen what I did see had it not been for 
your teaching me. 

I can only add my word to what so many who are writing 
already have told you: That to listen to you is to learn 
how to see the hidden beauty of the visible world; that to 
be your friend is to try to be intellectually honest. 

So I dedicate this book to you with the understanding 
that you shall take as your own the parts that please you, 
and forgive me the rest. 

As ever, 
Jack. 
New York, 
July 8, 1914. 


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CONTENTS 


On THE Borper . arn ; : oh eaten rat diy 1 


PART TAY DESERT WAR 
I. Ursina’s Country . ‘ at Wile 13 
II. Tur Lion or Duranco at eTAiaia aN ARUN Sali ihe 
Til we  RAGENERAL CrOwee TO: VAR) al its) ele eae 
LVo Las Eaopa ON) THE MAROGH wi Lk ec ell te cu oe 


Ve) WW YD NIGH TATA T:, GARCAY © u/y 9, Ponce ey vor tee Oe eO 
Vio Guummans Vive Sita kk AA a dies Fe 
VII. An Ovrpost or THE Revocurnen CAF ee Oe, rated ED 
Wigio) Tan ive Muskurepes oo. eel Soe Los 
IX. Tue Last Niewt. .. en ieg Ure Rh Reng ch 
X. Tuer CoMING OF THE Ganseicne Laas Dee 14 
XI. Meerster’s Fiicutr Sn Re ay Mee ayer a 87 
RRSP CU GLE A RITA LY Tei Wh le eal Mica vine Siig aN Bet) OO 


PART II. FRANCISCO VILLA 


Bie Vieca ACORPTATAUMEDAL eve re oe 1S 
LAYERS ew (Ome APA N DIT ot Ure) ar ir vee ented EG 
ES AS PRON IM ME OLITICS: of ts ORE Hg he 
IV. Tue Human Swe. - : P ea bau 
V. Tue Funerat or ABRAM Gonviins SS Ea 71 
VI. Vitx~a AND CARRANZA . i eee ey Rt ame od SY 
VII. Tue Ruxies or Warn . . Le Ca Sk Carel 
VIII. Tue Dream or Pancuo Vibe ete ee aie 


PART III. JIMINEZ AND POINTS WEST 


Pe ATDRA ME OIWAS! LOTR Pal Se 0) cer adits fa a nL oO 
DT ee ITO. BTA PE RIGADAM i a Gil oh cath br hhc tos 
III. Savep py a Wrist-watcH . . . . . 161 
Taber PeVMBOLS (OR MMRXICO WL) (bakes eo Teihe (U OS 


vil 


viii CONTENTS 


PART IV. A PEOPLE IN ARMS 


PAGE 


Lo CON Oro  TORRRON IT Cotte eae ees enn ae 
TT ae Arey oar WY RRMO el a ide San euae sine ead Fe 
TITS Finer] Buoop jedi + eile eee hee Mat Tea 
EV2 ON! TRE CANNON CAR ii) 0) ge thie) Lee EOL 
Vo Ar pum Garesior, Gomez ost. eee 
VI. Tuer CompaNeros ReappearR . . ; . 204 
VilTeo/ Tae -BiroopyrDAwne is ia , PN ee RPA Soh 3 a) 
VIII. Tue Artittery Comes UP. MT TALI eis 
IX. Barrte . f : Se a : : TY 
X. BETWEEN obese OY a Nae : ou) eo 
Ri AN OvurrosriIn ACTION 07 000 60 2k) aes 
XII. Conrreras’ Men AssauttT. t E Sin) aor eee 
XIII. A Nigur Arrack . ; : ; : Se ay 
XIV. Tue Fart or Gomez er ars at Sit) fle Are ene 


PART V. CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION : ‘ : .. 263 


PART VI. MEXICAN NIGHTS 


To Ber VOGsMOPOLITAs as): (ree. cok ai fol a ee 
II. Happy Va.Lurey : ; : Byte A ~ 289 
CTS eos PASTORES 3 fet US a We coe Die ema 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


ON THE BORDER 


ERCADO’S Federal army, after its dramatic 
M and terrible retreat four hundred miles across 
the desert when Chihuahua was abandoned, 

lay three months at Ojinaga on the Rio Grande. 

At Presidio, on the American side of the river, one 
could climb to the flat mud roof of the Post Office and 
look across the mile or so of low scrub growing in the 
sand to the shallow, yellow stream; and beyond to the 
low mesa, where the town was, sticking sharply up out 
of a scorched desert, ringed round with bare, savage 
mountains. 

One could see the square, gray adobe houses of 
Ojinaga, with here and there the Oriental cupola of an 
old Spanish church. It was a desolate land, without 
_trees. You expected minarets. By day, Federal sol- 
diers in shabby white uniforms swarmed about the place 
desultorily digging trenches, for Villa and his victori- 
ous Constitutionalists were rumored to be on the way. 
You got sudden glints, where the sun flashed on field 
guns; strange, thick clouds of smoke rose straight in 
the still air. 

Toward eyening, when the sun went down with the 
flare of a blast furnace, patrols of cavalry rode sharply 


1 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


across the skyline to the night outposts. And after 
dark, mysterious fires burned in the town. 

There were thirty-five hundred men in Ojinaga. This 
was all that remained of Mercado’s army of ten thou- 
sand and the five thousand which Pascual Orozco had 
marched north from Mexico City to reinforce him. Of 
this thirty-five hundred, forty-five were majors, 
twenty-one colonels, and eleven generals. 

I wanted to interview General Mercado; but one of 
the newspapers had printed something displeasing to 
General Salazar, and he had forbidden the reporters the 
town. I sent a polite request to General Mercado. The 
note was intercepted by General Orozco, who sent back 
the following reply: 


EsTEEMED AND Honorep Sir: If you set foot inside of 
Ojinaga, I will stand you sideways against a wall, and 
with my own hand take great pleasure in shooting fur- 
rows in your back. 


But after all I waded the river one day and went up 
into the town. Luckily, I did not meet General Orozco. 
No one seemed to object to my entrance. All the sen- 
tries I saw were taking a siesta on the shady side of 
adobe walls. But almost immediately I encountered a 
courteous officer named Hernandez, to whom I ex- 
plained that I wished to see General Mercado. 

Without inquiring as to my identity, he scowled, 
folded his arms, and burst out: 

“TY am General Orozco’s chief of staff, and I will not 
take you to see General Mercado!” 


2 


ON THE BORDER 


I said nothing. In a few minutes he explained: 

“General Orozco hates General Mercado! He does 
not deign to go to General Mercado’s cuartel, and Gen- 
eral Mercado does not dare to come to General Oroz- 
co’s cuartel! He is a coward. He ran away from 
Tierra Blanca, and then he ran away from Chihua- 
hua!” 

“What other Generals don’t you like?” I asked. 

He caught himself and slanted an angry look at me, 
and then grinned: 

“Quien sabe. ... ?” 

I saw General Mercado, a fat, pathetic, worried, un- 
decided little man, who blubbered and blustered a long 
tale about how the United States army had come across 
the river and helped Villa to win the battle of Tierra 
Blanca. 

The white, dusty streets of the town, piled high with 
filth and fodder, the ancient windowless church with its 
three enormous Spanish bells hanging on a rack outside 
and a cloud of blue incense crawling out of the black 
doorway, where the women camp followers of the army 
prayed for victory day and night, lay in hot, breathless 
sun. Five times had Ojinaga been lost and taken. 
Hardly a house that had a roof, and all the walls gaped 
with cannon-shot. In these bare, gutted rooms lived 
the soldiers, their women, their horses, their chickens 
and pigs, raided from the surrounding country. Guns 
were stacked in-the corners, saddles piled in the dust. 
The soldiers were in rags; scarcely one possessed a 
complete uniform. They squatted around little fires in 


3 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


their doorways, boiling corn-husks and dried meat. 
They were almost starving. 

Along the main street passed an unbroken proces- 
sion of sick, exhausted, starving people, driven from 
the interior by fear of the approaching rebels, a jour- 
ney of eight days over the most terrible desert in the 
world. They were stopped by a hundred soldiers along 
the street, and robbed of every possession that took the 
Federals’ fancy. Then they passed on to the river, 
and on the American side they had to run the gantlet 
of the United States customs and immigration officials 
and the Army Border Patrol, who searched them for 
arms. 

Hundreds of refugees poured across the river, some 
on horseback driving cattle before them, some in 
wagons, and others on foot. The inspectors were not 
very gentle. 

“Come down off that wagon!’ one would shout to a 
Mexican woman with a bundle in her arm. 

“But, sefior, for what reason? .. .”? she would be- 
gin. 

“Come down there or I'll pull you down!” he would 
yell. 

They made an unnecessarily careful and brutal 
search of the men and of the women, too. 

As I stood there, a woman waded across the ford, her 
skirts lifted unconcernedly to her thighs. She wore a 
voluminous shawl, which was humped up in front as if 
she were carrying something in it. 

“Hi, there!” shouted a customs man. ‘‘What have 


you got under your shawl?” 
4 


ON THE BORDER 


She slowly opened the front of her dress, and an- 
swered placidly: 

“T don’t know, sefior. It may be a girl, or it may be 
a boy.” 


These were metropolitan days for Presidio, a strag- 
gling and indescribably desolate village of about fif- 
teen adobe houses, scattered without much plan in the 
deep sand and _cotton-wood scrub along the river 
bottom. Old Kleinmann, ‘the German store-keeper, 
made a fortune a-day outfitting refugees and supply- 
ing the Federal army across the river with provisions. 
He had three beautiful adolescent daughters whom he 
kept locked up in the attic of the store, because a flock 
of amorous Mexicans and ardent cow-punchers prowled 
around like dogs, drawn from many miles away by 
the fame of these damsels. Half the time he spent 
working furiously in the store, stripped to the waist; 
and the remainder, rushing around with a large gun 
strapped to his waist, warning off the suitors. : 

At all times of the day and night, throngs of un- 
armed Federal soldiers from across the river swarmed 
in the store and the pool hall. Among them circu- 
lated dark, ominous persons with an important air, 
secret agents of the Rebels and the Federals. Around 
im the brush camped hundreds of destitute refugees, 
and you could not walk around:a corner at night with- 
out stumbling over a plot or a counterplot. There 
were Texas rangers, and United States troopers, and 
agents of American corporations trying to get secret 
instructions to their employees in the interior. 


5 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


One MacKenzie stamped about the Post Office in 
a high dudgeon. It appeared that he had important 
letters for the American Smelting and Refining Com- 
pany mines in Santa Eulalia. 

“Old Mercado insists on opening and reading all 
letters that pass through his lines,” he shouted indig- 
nantly. 

“But,” I said, “he will let them pass, won’t he?” 

“Certainly,” he answered. “But do you think the 
American Smelting and Refining Company will submit 
to having its letters opened and read by a damned 
greaser? It’s an outrage when an American corpora- 
tion can’t send a private letter to its employees! If 
this don’t bring Intervention,” he finished, darkly, “I 
don’t know what will!” 

There were all sorts of drummers for arms and am- 
munition companies, smugglers and contrabandistas; 
also a small, bantam man, the salesman for a portrait 
company, which made crayon enlargements from pho- 
tographs at $5 apiece. He was scurrying around among 
' the Mexicans, getting thousands of orders for pictures 
which were to be paid for upon delivery, and which; 
of course, could never be delivered. It was his first 
experience among Mexicans, and he was highly grati- 
fied by the hundreds of orders he had received. You 
see, a Mexican would just as soon order a portrait, or 
a piano, or an automobile as not, so long as he does 
not have to pay for it. It gives him a sense of wealth. 

The little agent for crayon enlargements made one — 
comment on the Mexican revolution. He said that — 
General Huerta must be a fine man, because he un- 


6 


ON THE BORDER 


derstood he was distantly connected, on his m 
side, with the distinguished Carey family of Virgi 

The American bank of the river was patroled twi 
a day by details of cavalry, conscientiously paralleled 
on the Mexican side by companies of horsemen. Both 
parties watched each other narrowly across the Bor- 
der. Every once in a while a Mexican, unable to re- 
strain his nervousness, took a pot-shot at the Ameri- 
cans, and a small battle ensued as both parties scat- 
tered into the brush. A little way above Presidio were 
stationed two troops of the Negro Ninth Cavalry. One 
colored trooper, watering his horse on the bank of 
the river, was accosted by an English-speaking Mexi- 
can squatting on the opposite shore: 

“Hey, coon!” he shouted, derisively, “when are you 
damned Gringos going to cross that line?” 

“Chile!”? responded the Negro. ‘We ain’t agoin’ 
to cross that line at all. We’re just goin’ to pick up 
that line an’ carry it right down to the Big Ditch!” 

Sometimes a rich refugee, with a good deal of gold 
sewed in his saddle-blankets, would get across the river 
without the Federals discovering it. There were six 
big, high-power automobiles in Presidio waiting for 
just such a victim. They would soak him one hun- 
dred dollars gold to make a trip to the railroad; and 
on the way, somewhere in the desolate wastes south of 
Marfa, he was almost sure to be held up by masked 
men and everything taken away from him. Upon these 
occasions the High Sheriff of Presidio County would 
bluster into town on a small pinto horse,—a figure true 
to the best tradition of “The Girl of the Golden West.” 


7 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


fm read all Owen Wister’s novels, and knew what 
estern sheriff ought to look like: two revolvers 
the hip, one slung under his arm, a large knife in 
is left boot, and an enormous shotgun over his sad- 
dle. His conversation was larded with the most fear- 
ful oaths, and he never caught any criminal. He 
spent all of his time enforcing the Presidio County: 
law against carrying firearms and playing poker; and 
at night, after the day’s work was done, you could 
always find him sitting in at a quiet game in the back 
of Kleinmann’s store. 

War and rumors of war kept Presidio at a fever heat. 
We all knew that sooner or later the Constitutionalist 
army would come overland from Chihuahua and at- 
tack Ojinaga. In fact, the major in command of the 
Border Patrol had already been approached by the 
Federal generals in a body to make arrangements for 
the retreat of the Federal army from Ojinaga under 
such circumstances. ‘They said that when the rebels 
attacked they would want to resist for a respectable 
length of time,—say two hours,—and that then they 
would like permission to come across the river. 

We knew that some twenty-five miles southward, at 
La Mula Pass, five hundred rebel volunteers guarded 
the only road from Ojinaga through the mountains. 
One day a courier sneaked through the Federal lines 
and across the river with important news. He said 
that the military band of the Federal army had been 
marching around the country practicing their music, 
and had been captured by the Constitutionalists, who 
stood them up in the market-place with rifles pointed 


8 


ON THE BORDER 


at their heads, and made them play twelve hours at 
a stretch. ‘Thus,’ continued the message, “the hard- 
ships of life in the desert have been somewhat allevi- 
ated.” We could never discover just how it was that 
the band happened to be practicing all alone twenty- 
two miles from Ojinaga in the desert. 


For a month longer the Federals remained at Oj1- 
naga, and Presidio throve. Then Villa, at the head 
of his army, appeared over a rise of the desert. The 
Federals resisted a respectable length of time—just 
two hours, or, to be exact, until Villa himself at the 
head of a battery galloped right up to the muzzles 
of the guns,—and then poured across the river in wild 
‘rout, were herded in a vast corral by the American sol- 
diers, and afterward imprisoned in a barbed-wire stock- 
‘ade at Fort Bliss, Texas. 

But by that time I was already far down in Mexico, 
riding across the desert with a hundred ragged Con- 
stitutionalist troopers on my way to the front. 


peta et ® 
ua mez 


uly 


i a 4 
fey 
y bY 
H fi 
i 


at ie 
bf ata iy 


SAMA a Lok 
Ak 
wie bi 


PART ONE 


DESERT WAR 


Mii et ha) 


‘ 
; 


CHAPTER I 


URBINA’S COUNTRY 


a mule-load of macuche,—you smoke macuche 

when you can’t get tobacco,—and we strolled 
down with the rest of the population to get the news. 
This was in Magistral, a Durango mountain village 
‘three days’ ride from the railroad. Somebody bought 
a little macuche, the rest of us borrowed from him, 
and we sent a boy for some corn-shucks. Everybody 
lit up, squatting around the peddler three deep; for 
it was weeks since the town had heard of the Revolu- 
tion. He was full of the most alarming rumors: that 
the Federals had broken out of Torreon and were 
headed this way, burning ranches and murdering paci- 
ficos; that the United States troops had crossed the 
‘Rio Grande; that Huerta had resigned; that Huerta 
was coming north to take charge of the Federal troops 
in person; that Pascual Orozco had been shot at Oji- 
naga; that Pascual Orozco was coming south with 
ten thousand colorados. He retailed these reports with 
a wealth of dramatic gesture, stamping around until 
his heavy brown-and-gold sombrero wabbled on his 
head, tossing his faded blue blanket over his shoulder, 
firing imaginary rifles and drawing imaginary swords, 


13 


‘ PEDDLER from Parral came into town with 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


while his audience murmured: “Ma!” and “Adio!” But 
the most interesting rumor was that General Urbina 
would leave for the front in two days. 

A hostile Arab named Antonio Swayfeta happened 
to be driving to Parral in a two-wheeled gig the next 
morning, and allowed me to go with him as far as Las 
Nieves, where the General lives. By afternoon we. 
had climbed out of the mountains to the great upland | 
plain of Northern Durango, and were jogging down 
the mile-long waves of yellow prairie, stretching away, 
so far that the grazing cattle dwindled into dots and 
finally disappeared at the base of the wrinkled purple’ 
mountains that seemed close enough to hit with a 
thrown stone. The Arab’s hostility had thawed, and 
he poured out his life’s story, not one word of which 
I could understand. But the drift of it, I gathered, 
was largely commercial. He had once been to El Paso. 
and regarded it as the world’s most beautiful city. But 
business was better in Mexico. They say that there 
are few Jews in Mexico because they cannot stand the 
competition of the Arabs. 


We passed only one human being all that day—a 
ragged old man astride a burro, wrapped in a red-and- 
black checked serape, though without trousers, and 
hugging the broken stock of a rifle. Spitting, he vol- 
unteered that he was a soldier; that after three years 
of deliberation he had finally decided to join the Revo- 
lution and fight for Libertad. But at his first battle a 
cannon had been fired, the first he had ever heard; he 
had immediately started for his home in El Oro, where 


3) 14 


URBINA’S COUNTRY 


he intended to descend into a gold-mine and stay there 
until the war was over... . 

We fell silent, Antonio and I. Occasionally he ad- 
dressed the mule in faultless Castilian. Once he in- 
formed me that that mule was “all heart” (pura cora- 
zon). ‘The sun hung for a moment on the crest of the 
red porphyry mountains, and dropped behind them; 
the turquoise cup of sky held an orange powder of 
clouds. Then all the rolling leagues of desert glowed 
and came near in the soft light. Ahead suddenly 
reared the solid fortress of a big rancho, such as one 
comes on once a day in that vast land,—a mighty 
square of blank walls, with loop-holed towers at the 
corners, and an iron-studded gate. It stood grim and 
forbidding upon a little bare hill, like any castle, its 
adobe corrals around it; and below, in what had been 
a dry arroyo all day, the sunken river came to the sur- 
face in a pool, and disappeared again in the sand. Thin 
lines of smoke from within rose straight into-the high 
last sunshine. From the river to the gate moved the 
tiny black figures of women with water-jars on their 
heads: and two wild horsemen galloped some cattle 
toward the corrals. Now the western mountains were 
blue velvet, and the pale sky a blood-stained canopy of 
watered silk. But by the time we reached the great 
gate of the rancho, above was only a shower of stars. 

Antonio called for Don Jesus. It is always safe 
to call for Don Jesus at a rancho, for that is invaria- 
bly the administrador’s name. He finally appeared, a 
magnificently tall man in tight trousers, purple silk 
undershirt, and a gray sombrero heavily loaded with 


15 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


silver braid; and invited us in. The inside of the wall 
consisted of houses, running all the way around. Along 
the walls and over the doors hung festoons of jerked 
meat, and strings of peppers, and drying clothes. 
Three young girls crossed the square in single file, 
balancing ollas of water on their heads, shouting to 
each other in the raucous voices of Mexican women. 
At one house a woman crouched, nursing her baby; 
next door another kneeled to the interminable labor 
of grinding corn-meal in a stone trough. The men- | 
folk squatted before little corn-husk fires, bundled in 
their faded serapes, smoking their hojas as they 
watched the women work. As we unharnessed they 
rose and gathered around, with soft-voiced “‘Buweno 
noches,”’ curious and friendly. Where did we come 
from? Where going? What did we have of news? 
Had the Maderistas taken Ojinaga yet? Was it true 
that Orozco was coming to kill the pacificos? Did we 
know Panfilo Silveyra? He was a sergento, one of 
Urbina’s men. He came from that house, was the 
cousin of this man. Ah, there was too much war! 
Antonio departed to bargain for corn for the mule. 
“A tanito—just a little corn,” he whined. “Surely 
Don Jesus wouldn’t charge him anything. ... Just 
so much corn as a mule could eat... !” At one of 
the houses I negotiated for dinner. The woman spread 
out both her hands. ‘‘We are all so poor now,” she 
said. “A little water, some beans—tortillas. ... It 
is all we eat in this house... .” Milk? No. Eggs? 
No. Meat? No. Coffee? Valgame Dios, no! I ven-. 
tured that with this money they might be purchased 


16 


URBINA’S COUNTRY 


at one of the other houses. “Quien sabe?” replied she 
dreamily. At this moment arrived the husband and 
upbraided her for her lack of hospitality. “My house 
is at your orders,” he said magnificently, and begged 
a cigarette. Then he squatted down while she brought 
forward the two family chairs and bade us seat our- 
selves. The room was of good proportions, with a dirt 
floor and a ceiling of heavy beams, the adobe showing 
through. Walls and ceiling were whitewashed, and, 
to the naked eye, spotlessly clean. In one corner was 
a big iron bed, and in the other a Singer sewing ma- 
chine, as in every other house I saw in Mexico. There 
was also a spindle-legged table, upon which stood a 
picture-postcard of Our Lady of Guadelupe, with a 
candle burning before it. Above this, on the wall, 
hung an indecent illustration clipped from the pages 
of Le Rire, in a silver-gilt frame—evidently an object 
of the highest veneration. 

Arrived now various uncles, cousins, and compadres, 
wondering casually if we dragged any cigarros. At 
ther husband’s command, the woman brought a live 
‘coal in her fingers. We smoked. It grew late. There 
developed a lively argument as to who would go and 
buy provisions for our dinner. Finally they compro- 
‘mised on the woman; and soon Antonio and I sat in 
‘the kitchen, while she crouched upon the altar-lke 
adobe platform in the corner, cooking over the open 
fire. The smoke enveloped up, pouring out the door. 
Occasionally a pig or a few hens would wander in 
from the outside, or a sheep would make a dash for 
the tortilla meal, until the angry voice of the master 


17 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


of the house reminded the woman that she was not 
doing five or six things at once. And she would ris@ 
wearily and belabor the animal with a flaming brand, 

All through our supper—jerked meat fiery with chile, 
fried eggs, tortillas, frijoles, and bitter black coffees 
—the entire male population of the rancho bore us” 
company, in the room and out. It seemed that some 
were especially prejudiced against the Church) 
“Priests without shame,” cried one, “‘who come when 
we are so poor and take away a tenth of what we 


have!” 

“And us paying a quarter to the Government for 
this cursed war!” ... 

“Shut your mouth!” shrilled the woman. “It is for : 
God! God must eat, the same as we... .” | 

Her husband smiled a superior smile. He had once 
been to Jimenez and was considered a man of the world, 

“God does not eat,” he etre with fnality® | 
“The curas grow fat on us.’ 

“Why do you give it?” I asked. 

“Tt is the law,”’ said several at once. ! 

And not one would believe that that law was re- 
pealed in Mexico in the year 1857! 

I asked them about General Urbina. “A good man, 
all heart.” And another: “He is very brave. The 
bullets bound off him like rain from a sombrero. .. .” 
“He is the cousin of my woman’s first husband’s sister.” 
“He is bueno para los negocios del campo” (that is 
to say, he is a highly successful bandit and highway- 
man). And finally one said proudly: “A few years 


18 


URBINA’S COUNTRY 


ago he was just a peon like us; and now he is a Gen- 
eral and a rich man.” 

But I shall not soon forget the hunger-pinched body 
and bare feet of an old man with the face of a saint, 
who said slowly: “The Revolucion is good. When it 
is done we shall starve never, never, never, if God is 
served. But it is long, and we have no food to eat, or 
clothes to wear. For the master has gone away from 
the hacienda, and we have no tools or animals to do 


our work with, and the soldiers take all our corn and 
drive away the cattle. .. .” 

“Why don’t the pacificos fight?” 

He shrugged his shoulders. “Now they do not need 
us. They have no rifles for us, or horses. They are 
winning. And who shall feed them if we do not plant 
corn? No, sefior. But if the Revolucion loses, then 
there will be no more pacificos. Then we will rise, with 
our knives and our horsewhips.... The Revolucion 
‘will not lose. .. .” 

As Antonio and I rolled up in our blankets on the 
floor of the granary, they were singing. One of the 
young bucks had procured a guitar somewhere, and 
two voices, clinging to each other in that peculiar 
strident Mexican “barber-shop” harmony, were whin- 
ing loudly something about a “‘trista historia d’amor.” 


The rancho was one of many belonging to the Haci- 
enda of E] Canotillo, and all next day we drove through 
its wide lands, which covered more than two million 


19 


— > 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


acres, I was told. The hacendado, a wealthy Spaniard, 
had fled the country two years before. . 
“Who is owner now?” 
“General Urbina,” said Antonio. And it was so, as” 


—" 


I soon saw. The great haciendas of Northern Du- 
rango, an area greater than the State of New Jersey, 
had been confiscated for the Constitutionalist govern- 
ment by” the General, who ruled them with his own. 
agents, and, it was said, divided fifty-fifty with the 
Revolution. 

We drove steadily all day, only stopping long ae 
to eat a few tortillas. And along about sundown we 
saw the brown mud wall that hemmed El Canotillo 
round, with its city of little houses, and the ancient. 
pink tower of its church among the alamo trees,— 
miles away at the foot of the mountains. The village 
of Las Nieves, a straggling collection of adobes the 
exact color of the earth of which they are built, lay 
before us, like some strange growth of the desert. A 
flashing river, without a trace of green along its banks 
to contrast it with the scorched plain, made a semi- 
circle around the town. And as we splashed across 
the ford, between the women kneeling there at their 
washing, the sun suddenly went behind the es 
mountains. Immediately a deluge of yellow light, thick 
as water, drowned the earth, and a golden mist rose 
from the ground, in which the cattle floated legless. 

I knew that the price for such a journey as Antonio 
had carried me was at least ten pesos, and he was an 
Arab to boot. But when I offered him money, he threw 
his arms around me and burst into tears. . . . God 


20 


THE LION OF DURANGO AT HOME 


bless you, excellent Arab! You are right; business is 
better in Mexico. 


CHAPTER II 
THE LION OF DURANGO AT HOME 


T General Urbina’s door sat an old peon with 
four cartridge-belts around him, engaged in 
the genial occupation of filling corrugated iron 

bombs with gunpowder. He jerked his thumb toward 
the patio. ‘The General’s house, corrals and store- 


rooms ran around all four sides of a space as big as 
a city block, swarming with pigs, chickens and half- 
naked children. Two goats and three magnificent pea- 
cocks gazed pensively down from the roof. In and 
out of the sitting-room, whence came the phonographic 
strains of the “Dollar Princess,” stalked a train of 
hens. An old woman came from the kitchen and dumped 
a bucket of garbage on the ground; all the pigs made 
‘a squealing rush for it. In a corner of the house- 
-wall sat the General’s baby daughter, chewing on a 
cartridge. A group of men stood or sprawled on the 
ground around a well in the center of the patio. The 
General himself sat in their midst, in a broken wicker 
arm-chair, feeding tortillas to a tame deer and a lame 
black sheep. Before him kneeled a peon, pouring from 
a canvas sack some hundreds of Mauser cartridges. 

To my explanations the General returned no an- 
swer. He gave me a limp hand, immediately with- 


21 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


drawing it, but did not rise. ‘A broad, medium-sized 


man of dark mahogany complexion, with a sparse 


black beard up to his cheek-bones, that didn’t hide © 


the wide, thin, expressionless mouth, the gaping nos- 
trils, the shiny, small, humorous, animal eyes. For 


a good five minutes he never took them from mine. I~ 


produced my papers. 


“JT don’t know how to read,” said the General sud- — 
denly, motioning to his secretary. “So you want to — 
go with me to battle?” he shot at me in the coarsest — 
Spanish. “Many bullets!” I said nothing. “Muy 
bien! But I don’t know when I shall go. Maybe in : 


19 


five days. Now eat 
’ “Thanks, my general, I’ve already eaten.” 
“Go and eat,” he repeated calmly. “Andale!” 


A dirty little man they all called Doctor escorted me ; 
to the dining-room. He had once’been an apothecary in ( 
Parral, but was now a Major. We were to sleep to- — 
gether that night, he said. But before we reached © 
the dining-room there was a shout of “Doctor!” A 
wounded man had arrived, a peasant with his sombrero © 


in his hand, and a blood-clotted handkerchief around 


his head. The little doctor became all efficiency. He — 
dispatched a boy for the family scissors, another for | 
a bucket of water from the well. He sharpened with © 
his knife a stick he picked up from the ground. Seat- — 
ing the man on a box, he took off the bandage, reveal- 
ing a cut about two inches long, caked with dirt and | 
dried blood. First he cut off the hair around the | 
wound, jabbing the points of the scissors carelessly | 


into it. The man drew in his breath sharply, but did 


22 


= — ad 


{ 


THE LION OF DURANGO AT HOME 


not move. ‘Then the doctor slowly cut the clotted blood 
away from the top, whistling cheerfully to himself. 
“Yes,” he remarked, “it is an interesting life, the doc- 
tor’s.” He peered closely at the vomiting blood; the 
peasant sat like a sick stone. “And it is a life full of 
nobility,” continued the doctor. “Alleviating the suf- 
ferings of others.” Here he picked up the sharpened 
stick, thrust it deep in, and slowly worked it the entire 
ength of the cut! 

“Pah! The animal has fainted!’ said the doctor. 
‘Here, hold him up while I wash it!’ With that he 
ifted the bucket and poured its contents over the head 
of the patient, the water and blood dribbling down 
over his clothes. “These ignorant peons,” said the 
loctor, binding up the wound in its original bandage, 
‘have no courage. It is the intelligence that makes 
me soul, eh?” .. . 

When the peasant came to, I asked: “Are you a 
oldier?” ‘The man smiled a sweet, deprecating smile. 

“No, sefior, I am only a pacifico,” he said. “I live in 
he Canotillo, where my house is at your orders. . . .” 

Some time later—a good deal—we all sat down to 
upper. There was Lieutenant-Colonel Pablo Seafies, 
. frank, engaging youth of twenty-six, with five bullets 
n him to pay for the three years’ fighting. His con- 
ersation was sprinkled with soldierly curses, and his 
ronunciation was a little indistinct, the result of a 
yullet on the jaw-bone and a tongue almost cut in 
wo by a sword. He was a demon in the field, they 
aid, and a killer (muy matador) after it. At the first 
aking of Torreon, Pablo and two other officers, Major 


23 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Fierro and Captain Borunda, had executed alone 
eighty unarmed prisoners, each man shooting them 
down with his revolver until his hand got tired pulling 
the trigger. 

“Qiga!” Pablo said. “Where is the best institute 
for the study of hypnotism in the United States? .. . 
As soon as this cursed war is over I am going to study 
to become a hypnotist... .” With that he turned 
and began to make passes at Lieutenant Borrega, who 
was called derisively “The Lion of the Sierras,” be- 
cause of his prodigious boasting. The latter jerked 
out his revolver: “I want no business with the devil!” 
he screamed, amid the uproarious laughter of the 
others. 

Then there was Captain Fernando, a grizzled giant 
of a man in tight trousers, who had fought twenty- 
one battles. He took the keenest delight in my frag: 
mentary Spanish, and every word I spoke sent him inte 
bellows of laughter that shook down the adobe fron 
the ceiling. He had never been out of Durango, anc 
declared that there was a great sea between the Unitec 
States and Mexico, and that he believed all the res: 
of the earth to be water. Next to him sat Longino 
Giiereca, with a row of decayed teeth across his round 
gentle face every time he smiled, and a record for sim 
ple bravery that was famous throughout the army 
He was twenty-one, and already First Captain. H 
told me that last night his own men had tried to ki 
him. . . . Then came Patricio, the best rider of wil 
horses in the State, and Fidencio next to him, a pur 
blooded Indian seven feet tall, who always fought stanc 


24 


THE LION OF DURANGO AT HOMK 


ng up. And last Raphael Zalarzo, a tiny hunchback 
hat Urbina carried in his train to amuse him, lke 


iny medieval Italian duke. 

When we had burned our throats with the last en- 
thilada, and scooped up our last frijole with a tor- 
illa,—forks and spoons being unknown,—the gentle- 
nen each took a mouthful of water, gargled it, and 
pat it on the floor. As I came out into the patio, I 
aw the figure of the General emerge from his bed- 
oom door, staggering slightly. In his hand he carried 
. revolver. He stood for a moment in the light of 
mother door, then suddenly went in, banging it be- 
ind him. 

I was already in bed when the doctor came into the 
‘oom. In the other bed reposed the Lion of the Sierras 
nd his momentary mistress, now loudly snoring. 

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “there has been some little 
rouble. The General has not been able to walk for 
wo months from rheumatism. . . . And sometimes he 
3in great pain, and comforts himself with aguardiente. 
. . To-night he tried to shoot his mother. He al- 
Vays tries to shoot his mother . . . . because he loves 
fer very much.” The Doctor peeped at himself in 
|he mirror, and twisted his mustache. “This Revolu- 
tion. Do not mistake. Itis a fight of the poor against 
jhe rich. I was very poor before the Revolucion and 
ow I am very rich.” He pondered a moment, and then 
hegan removing his clothes. Through his filthy under- 
(hirt the Doctor honored me with his one English sen- 
tence: “I have mooch lices,” he said, with a proud 
Wmile. ... 

25 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


I went out at dawn and walked around Las Nieves. 
The town belongs to General Urbina, people, houses, 
animals and immortal souls. At Las Nieves he and 
he alone wields the high justice and the low. The 
town’s only store is in his house, and I bought some 
cigarettes from the Lion of the Sierras, who was de- 
tailed store-clerk for the day. In the patio the Gen- 
eral was talking with his mistress, a beautiful, aristo- 
cratic-looking woman, with a voice like a hand-saw, 
When he noticed me he came up and shook hands, say- 
ing that he’d like to have me take some pictures of 
him. I said that that was my purpose in lie, and 
asked him if he thought he would leave soon for the 
front. “In about ten days, I think,” he answered. I 
began to get uncomfortable. 

“I appreciate your hospitality, my General,” I told 
him, “but my work demands that I be where I can see 
the actual advance upon Torreon. If it is convenient, I 
should like to go back to Chihuahua and join General 
Villa, who will soon go south.” Urbina’s expression 
didn’t change, but he shot at me: “What is it that 
you don’t like here? You are in your own house! De 


you want cigarettes? Do you want aguardiente, or 
sotol, or cognac? Do you want a woman to warm 
your bed at night? Everything you want I can give 
you! Do you want a pistol? A horse? Do you wani 
money?” He jerked a handful of silver dollars fron 
his pocket and threw them jingling on the ground al 
my feet. 

I said: ‘Nowhere in Mexico am I so happy and con 


26 


THE GENERAL GOES TO WAR 


tented as in this house.” And I was prepared to go 
further. 

For the next hour I took photographs of General 
Url, na: General Urbina on foot, with and without 
sword; General Urbina on three different horses; Gen- 
eral Urbina with and without his family; General Ur- 
bina’s three children, on horseback and off ; General 
Urbina’s mother, and his mistress; the entire family, 
armed with swords and revolvers, including the phono- 
graph, produced for the purpose, one of the children 
holding a placard upon which was inked: “General 

omas Urbina R.” 


CHAPTER III 


THE GENERAL GOES TO WAR 


| E had finished breakfast and I was resigning 
myself to the ten days in Las Nieves, when 
: the General suddenly changed his mind. He 
ame out of his room, roaring orders. In five min- 
ites the house was all bustle and confusion,—officers 
ushing to pack their serapes, mozos and troopers sad- 
ling horses, peons with armfuls of rifles rushing to 
nd fro. Patricio harnessed five mules to the great 
oach,—an exact copy of the Deadwood Stage. A 
ourier rode out on the run to summon the Tropa, 
hich was quartered at the Canotillo. Rafaelito loaded 
ae General’s baggage into the coach; it consisted of 
typewriter, four swords, one of them bearing the 


27 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


emblem of the Knights of Pythias, three uniform, the 
General’s branding-iron, and a twelve-gallon demjohn 
of sotol. 7 

And there came the Tropa, a ragged smoke of k’pwn 
dust miles along the road. Ahead flew a little, squat, 
black figure, with the Mexican flag streaming cer 
him; he wore a floppy sombrero loaded with five pouids 
of tarnished gold braid,—once probably the pride of 
some imperial hacendado. Following him closely were 
Manuel Paredes, with riding boots up to his hips, fas- 
tened with silver buckles the size of dollars, beating 
his mount with the flat of a saber; Isidro Amayo, 
making his horse buck by flapping a hat in his eyes; 
José Valiente, ringing his immense silver spurs inlaid, 
with turquoises; Jesus Mancilla, his flashing brass 
chain around his neck; Julian Reyes, with colored pic- 
tures of Christ and the Virgin fastened to the front 
of his sombrero; a struggling tangle of six behind, with 
Antonio Guzman trying to lasso them, the coils of 
his horsehair rope soaring out of the dust. They came 
on the dead run, all Indian shouts and cracking re- 
volvers, until they were only a hundred feet away, then 
jerked their little cow-ponies cruelly to a staggering 
halt with bleeding mouths, a whirling confusion of 
men, horses and dust. | 

This was the Tropa when I first saw them. About 
a hundred, they were, in all stages of picturesque rag- 
gedness; some wore overalls, others the charro jackets 
of peons, while one or two sported tight vaquero trou- 
sers. A few had shoes, most of them only cowhide 
sandals, and the rest were barefooted. Sabas Gui 


28 
| 


THE GENERAL GOES TO WAR 


rez was garbed in an ancient frockcoat, split up the 
back for riding. Rifles slung at their saddles, four or 
five cartridge-belts crossed over their chests, high, flap- 
ping sombreros, immense spurs chiming as they rode, 
bright-colored serapes strapped on behind—this was 
their uniform. 

The General was with his mother. Outside the door 
crouched his mistress, weeping, her three children 
around her. For almost an hour we waited, then Ur- 
bina suddenly burst out of the door. With scarcely 
a look at his family, he leaped on his great, gray 
charger, and spurred furiously into the street. Juan 
Sanchez blew a blast on his cracked bugle, and the 
Tropa, with the General at its head, took the Canotillo 
road. 

In the meanwhile Patricio and I loaded three cases 
of dynamite and a case of bombs into the boot of the 
‘coach. I got up beside Patricio, the peons let go of 
the mules’ heads, and the long whip curled around their 
bellies. Galloping, we whirled out of the village, and 
took the steep bank of the river at twenty miles an 
hour. Away on the other side, the Tropa trotted along 
a more direct road. ‘The Canotillo we passed without 
stopping. 

“Arré mulas! Putas! Hijas de la Ho——!”’ yelled 
Patricio, the whip hissing. The Camino Real was a 
mere track on uneven ground; every time we took a 
little arroyo the dynamite came down with a sicken- 
ing crash. Suddenly a rope broke, and one case 
bounced off the coach and fell upon rocks. It was a 


29 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


cool Ripa however, and we strapped it on again 
safely. . 
ied et! every hundred yards along the road were lite 
tle heaps of stones, surmounted by wooden crosses,— 
each one the memorial of a murder. And occasionally a i 
tall, whitewashed cross uprose in the middle of a side 
road, to protect some little desert rancho from the 
visits of the devil. Black shiny chaparral, the height. 
of a mule’s back, scraped the side of the coach; Span-| 
ish bayonet and the great barrel-cactus watched us 
like sentinels from the skyline of the desert. And al-, 
ways the mighty Mexican vultures circled over us, as 


if they knew we were going to war. | 

Late in the afternoon the stone wall which bounds | 
the million acres of the Hacienda of Torreon de Cafias. 
swung into sight on our left, marching across deserts. 
and mountains like the Great Wall of China, for more’ 
than thirty miles; and, soon afterward, the hacienda 
itself. The Tropa had dismounted around the Big 
House. They said that General Urbina had suddenly 
been taken violently sick, and would probably be un- 
able to leave his bed for a week. | 

The Casa Grande, a magnificent porticoed palace but 
one story high, covered the entire top of a desert rise. 


Pogues 


From its doorway one could see fifteen miles of yellow, 
rolling plain, and, beyond, the interminable ranges of 
bare mountains piled upon each other. Back of it lay 
the great corrals and stables, where the Tropa’s even- 
ing fires already sent up myriad columns of yellow, 
smoke. Below, in the hollow, more than a hundred 
peons’ houses made a vast open square, where chil 


30 


THE GENERAL GOES TO WAR 


dren and animals romped together, and the women 
kneeled at their eternal grinding of corn. Out on the 
desert a troop of vaqueros rode slowly home; and 
from the river, a mile away, the endless chain of black- 
shawled women carried water on their heads... . It 
is impossible to imagine how close to nature the peons 
live on these great haciendas. Their very houses are 
built of the earth upon which they stand, baked by the 
sun. Their food is the corn they grow; their drink 
the water from the dwindled river, carried painfully 
upon their heads; the clothes they wear are spun from 
the wool, and their sandals cut from the hide of a newly 
slaughtered steer. The animals are their constant 
companions, familiars of their houses. Light and 
‘darkness are their day and night. When a man and a 
‘woman fall in love they fly to each other without the 
formalities of a courtship,—and when they are tired 
of each other they simply part. Marriage is very 
‘costly (six pesos to the priest), and is considered a 
very swagger extra; but it is no more binding than the 
‘most casual attachment. And of course jealousy is a 
stabbing matter. 

We dined in one of the lofty, barren salas of the 
‘Casa Grande; a room with a ceiling eighteen feet high, 
and walls of noble proportions, covered with cheap 
‘American wallpaper. A gigantic mahogany sideboard 
‘occupied one side of the place, but we had no knives 
and forks. There was a tiny fireplace, in which a fire 
‘was never lighted, yet the chill of death abode there 
‘day and night. The room next door was hung with 
heavy, spotted brocade, though there was no rug on the 


31 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


concrete floor. No pipes and no plumbing in all the 
house,—you went to the well or the river for water. 
‘And candles the only light! Of course the duefio had 
long fled the country; but the hacienda in its prime 
must have been as splendid and as uncomfortable as 
a medieval castle. 

The cura or priest of the hacienda church presided 
at dinner. To him were brought the choicest viands, 
which he sometimes passed to his favorites after help- 
ing himself. We drank sotol and aguamiel, while the 
cura made away with a whole bottle of looted anisette, 
Exhilarated by this, His Reverence descanted upon 


the virtues of the confessional, especially where young 
girls were concerned. He also made us understand 
that he possessed certain feudal rights over new brides, 
“The girls, here,” he said, “care very passionate. . . .” 

I noticed that the rest didn’t laugh much at this, 
though they were outwardly respectful. After we 
were out of the room, José Valiente hissed, shaking so 
that he could hardly speak: “I know the dirty 
And my sister . . . ! The Revolucion will have some- 
thing to say about these curas!’’ Two high Constitu- 
tionalist officers afterward hinted at a little-known pro- 
gram to drive the priests out of Mexico; and Villa’s 
hostility to the cwras is well known. 


Patricio was harnessing the coach when I came out 
in the morning, and the Tropa were saddling up. The 
doctor, who was remaining with the General, strolled 
up to my friend, Trooper Juan Vallejo. 

“That’s a pretty horse you’ve got bar he sail 

“and a nice rifle. Lend them to me.’ 
32 


LA TROPA ON THE MARCH 


“But I haven’t any other ” began Juan. 

“T am your superior officer,” returned the doctor. 
And that was the last we ever saw of doctor, horse 
and rifle. 

I said farewell to the General, who was lying in tor- 
ture in bed, sending bulletins to his mother by tele- 
phone every fifteen minutes. “May you journey hap- 
pily,” he said. ‘Write the truth. I commend you to 
Pablito.” 


CHAPTER IV 


LA TROPA ON THE MARCH 


Pablo Seafies, and his mistress. She was a 
strange creature. Young, slender, and beauti- 

ful, she was poison and a stone to everybody but 
Pablo. I never saw her smile and never heard her 
say a gentle word. Sometimes she treated us with 
dull ferocity; sometimes with bestial indifference. But 
_ Pablo she cradled like a baby. When he lay across 
‘the seat with his head in her lap, she would hug 
it fiercely to her breast, making noises like a tigress 


| ND so I got inside the coach, with Rafaelito, 


with her young. 

- Patricio handed down his guitar from the box, where 

‘he kept it, and to Rafael’s accompaniment the Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel sang love-ballads in a cracked voice. Every 
Mexican knows hundreds of these. They are not writ- 

‘ten down, but often composed extemporaneously, and 

handed along by word of mouth. Some of them are 


33 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


very beautiful, some grotesque, and others as satirical 
as any French popular song. He sang: 


“Eailed I wandered through the world— 
Exiled by the government. 

I came back at the end of the year, 
Drawn by the fondness of love. 

I went away with the purpose 

Of staying away forever. 

And the love of a woman was the only thing 
That made me come back.” 


And then “Los Hijos de la Noche”: 


“I am of the children of the night 

Who wander aimlessly in the darkness. 
The beautiful moon with its golden rays 
Is the companion of my sorrows. 


“I am going to lose myself from thee, 

Exhausted with weeping; 

I am going sailing, sailing, ) 
By the shores of the sea. , 


“You will see at the time of our parting 

I will not allow you to love another. 

For if so it should be, I would ruin your face, 
And many blows we would give one another. 


“So I am going to become an American. 
Go with God, Antonia. 


3k 


LA TROPA ON THE MARCH 


Say farewell to my friends. 

O may the Americans allow me to pass 
And open a saloon 

On the other side of the River!” 


The Hacienda of El Centro turned out to give us 
lunch. And there Fidencio offered me his horse to 
ride for the afternoon. 

The Tropa had already ridden on ahead, and I could 
see them, strung out for half a mile in the black mes- 
quite brush, the tiny red-white-and-green flag bobbing 
at their head. The mountains had withdrawn some- 
where beyond the horizon, and we rode in the midst 
of a great bowl of desert, rolling up at the edges to 
meet the furnace-blue of the Mexican sky. Now that 
I was out of the coach, a great silence, and a peace be- 
yond anything I ever felt, wrapped me around. It is 
almost impossible to get objective about the desert; 
you sink into it,—become a part of it. Galloping 
along, I soon caught up with the Tropa. 

“Aye, meester!” they shouted. “Here comes mees- 
ter on a horse! Que tal, meester? How goes it? Are 
you going to fight with us?” 

But Captain Fernando at the head of the column 
turned and roared: “Come here, meester!” The big 
‘Man was grinning with delight. “You shall ride with 
me,” he shouted, clapping me on the back. “Drink, 
now,” and he produced a bottle of sotol about half 
full. “Drink it all. Show you’re a man.” “It’s too 
much,” I laughed. “Drink it,” yelled the chorus as 
the Tropa crowded up to see. I drank it. ‘A howl of 


35 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


laughter and applause went up. Fernando leaned 
over and gripped my hand. “Good for you, com- 
panero!’? he bellowed, rolling with mirth. The men 
crowded around, amused and interested. Was I going 
to fight with them? Where did I come from? What 
was I doing? Most of them had never heard of re- 
porters, and one hazarded the opinion darkly that I 
was a Gringo and a Porfirista, and ought to be shot. 

The rest, however, were entirely opposed to this view. 
No Porfirista would possibly drink that much sofol at 
a gulp. Isidro Amayo declared that he had been in 
a brigade in the first Revolution which was accom- 
panied by a reporter, and that he was called Corre- 
sponsal de Guerra. Did I like Mexico? I said: “I 
am very fond of Mexico. I like Mexicans too. And I 
like sotol, aguardiente, mescal, tequila, pulque, and 
other Mexican customs!” They shouted with laughter. 

Captain Fernando leaned over and patted my arm. 
*‘Now you are with the men (los hombres.) When we 
win the Revolucion it will be a government by the men, 
—not by the rich. We are riding over the lands of 
the men. ‘They used to belong to the rich, but now 
they belong to me and to the compafieros.” 

“And you will be the army?” I asked. 

“When the Revolucion is won,”’ was the astonishing 
reply, “there will be no more army. The men are sick 
of armies. It is by armies that Don Porfirio robbed. 
us.” 

“But if the United States should invade Mexico?” 

A perfect storm broke everywhere. “We are more 
valiente than the Americanos—The cursed Gringos 


36 


LA TROPA ON THE MARCH 


would get no further south than Juarez—Let’s see 
them try it—We’d drive them back over the Border on 
the run, and burn their capital the next day .. .!” 

“No,” said Fernando, “you have more money and 
more soldiers. But the men would protect us. We 
need no army. ‘The men would be fighting for their 
houses and their women.” 

“What are you fighting for?” I asked. Juan San- 
chez, the color-bearer, looked at me curiously. “Why, 
it is good, fighting. You don’t have to work in the 
momes .,. !” 

Manuel Paredes said: “We are fighting to restore 
Francisco I. Madero to the Presidency.” This ex- 
traordinary statement is printed in the program of 
the Revolution. And everywhere the Constitutionalist 
soldiers are known as “Maderistas.” “I knew him,” 
continued Manuel, slowly. “He was always laughing, 
always.” 

“Yes,” said another, ‘“‘whenever there was any 
‘trouble with a man, and all the rest wanted to fight 
him or put him in prison, Pancho Madero said: ‘Just 
Jet me talk to him a few minutes. I can bring 
him around.’ ” 

“He loved bailes,” an Indian said. ‘Many a time 
Tve seen him dance all night, and all the next day, and 
the next night. He used to come to the great Hacien- 
das and make speeches. When he began the peons 
hated him; when he ended they were crying. . . .” 

Here a man broke out into a droning, irregular tune, 
such as always accompanies the popular ballads that 
spring up in thousands on every occasion: 


37 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“In Nineteen hundred and ten 
Madero was imprisoned 

In the National Palace 

The eighteenth of February 


“Four days he was imprisoned 
In the Hall of the Intendancy 
Because he did not wish 

T'o renounce the Presidency 


“Then Blanquet and Felix Diaz 
Martyred hum there 

They were the hangmen 
Feeding on his hate. 


“They crushed. . . « 
Until he fainted 
With play of cruelty 
T'o make him resign. 


“Then with hot trons 

They burned him without mercy 
And only unconsciousness 
Calmed the awful flames. 


“But it was all in vain 
Because his mighty courage 
Preferred rather to die 
His was a great heart! 


38 


aie te = 


LA TROPA ON THE MARCH 


“This was the end of the life 
Of him who was the redeemer 
Of the Indian Republic 

And of all the poor. 


“They took him out of the Palace 

And tell us he was killed in an assault 
What a cynicism! 

What a shameless lie! 


“O Street of Lecumberri 

Your cheerfulness has ended forever 
For through you passed Madero 

To the Penitentiary. 


“That twenty-second of February 

Will always be remembered in the Indian Republic. 
God has pardoned him 

And the Virgm of Guadelupe. 


“Good-bye Beautiful Mexico 
‘Where our leader died 
Good-bye to the palace 

Whence he issued a living corpse 


“Sefiores, there is nothing eternal 
Nor anything sincere in life 
See what happened to Don Francisco I, Madero!” 


39 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


By the time he was half-way through, the entire 
Tropa was humming the tune, and when he finished 
there was a moment of jingling silence. 

“We are fighting,” said Isidro Amayo, “for Liber- 
tad.” 

“What do you mean by Libertad?” 

“Libertad is when I can do what I want!” 

“But suppose it hurts somebody else?” 

He shot back at me Benito Juarez’ great sentence: 

“Peace is the respect for the rights of others!” 

I wasn’t prepared for that. It startled me, this 
barefooted meztizo’s conception of Liberty. I submit 
that it is the only correct definition of Liberty—to do 
what I want to! Americans quote it to me triumph- 
antly as an instance of Mexican irresponsibility. But 
I think it is a better definition than ours—Liberty is 
the right to do what the Courts want. Every Mexican 
schoolboy knows the definition of peace and seems to 
understand pretty well what it means, too. But, they 
say, Mexicans don’t want peace. That is a lie, and a 
foolish one. Let Americans take the trouble to go 
through the Maderista army, asking whether they want 
peace or not! The people are sick of war. 

But, just to be square, I'll have to report Juan San-_ 
chez’ remark: 

“Is there war in the United States now?” he asked. 

“No,” I said untruthfully. 

“No war at all?” He meditated for a moment. 
““How do you pass the time, then... ?” 3 

‘Just about then somebody saw a coyote sneaking 
through the brush, and the entire Tropa gave chase 


40 


a. 


LA TROPA ON THE MARCH 


with a whoop. They scattered rollicking over the 
desert, the late sun flashing from cartridge-belts and 
spurs, the ends of their bright serapes flying out be- 
hind. Beyond them, the scorched world sloped gently 
up, and a range of far lilac mountains jumped in the 
heat waves like a bucking horse. By here, if tradi- 
tion is right, passed the steel-armored Spaniards in 
their search for gold, a blaze of crimson and silver 
that has left the desert cold and dull ever since. And, 
topping a rise, we came upon the first sight of the 
Hacienda of La Mimbrera, a walled enclosure of houses 
strong enough to stand a siege, stretching steeply down 
a2 hill, with the magnificent Casa Grande at the top. 
In front of this house, which had been sacked and 
surned by Orozco’s General, Che Che Campa, two years 
yefore, the coach was drawn up. A huge fire had been 
cindled, and ten compafieros were slaughtering sheep. 
nto the red glare of the firelight they staggered, with 
he struggling, squealing sheep in their arms, its blood 
ountaining upon the ground, shining in the fierce light 
ike something phosphorescent. 
| The officers and I dined in the house of the adminis- 
rador Don Jesus, the most beautiful specimen of man- 
ood I have ever seen. He was much over six feet tall, 
lender, white-skinned—a pure Spanish type of the 
ighest breed. At one end of his dining-room, I re- 
ember, hung a placard embroidered in red, white and 
reen: “Viva Mexico!” and at the other, a second, 
hich read: “Viva Jesus!” 
It was after dinner, as I stood at the fire, wonder- 


41 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


ing where I was to sleep, that Captain vena 
touched me on the arm. 
“Will you sleep with the compaferos?” | 
We walked across the great open square, in the 
furious light of the desert stars, to a stone store-house 


set apart. Inside, a few candles stuck against the wall 
illumined the rifles stacked in the corners, the sad- 
dles on the floor, and the blanket-rolled compaferos 
with their heads on them. One or two were awake, 
talking and smoking. In a corner, three sat muffled 
in their serapes, playing cards. Five or six had voices 
and a guitar. They were singing “Pascual Orozco,” 
beginning: 


“They say that Pascual Orozco has turned his coal 
Because Don Terrazzas seduced him; 

They gave him many millions and they bought him | 
And sent him to overthrow the government. 


“Orozco believed it 

And to the war he went; 
But the Maderista cannon 
Was his calamity. 


“Tf to thy window shall come Porfirio Diaz, 
Give him for charity some cold tortillas; 

If to thy window shall come General Huerta, 
Spit in his face and slam the door. 


“If to thy window shall come Inez Salazar, 

Lock your trunk so that he can’t steal; 

If to thy window shall come Maclovio’ Herrera, 
Give him dinner and put the cloth on the table.” 


AQ 


LA TROPA ON THE MARCH 


_ They didn’t distinguish me at first, but soon one of 
the card-players said: “Here comes Meester!” At that 
the others roused, and woke the rest. “That’s right— 
it’s good to sleep with the hombres—take this place, 
amigo—here’s my saddle—here there is no crookedness 
—here a man goes straight. . . .” 

“May you pass a happy night, compafero,” they 
said. “Till morning, then.” 
) Pretty soon somebody shut the door. The room be- 
came full of smoke and fetid with human breath. What 
little silence was left from the chorus of snoring was 
entirely obliterated by the singing, which kept up, I 
guess, until dawn. The compaferos had fleas... . 
_ But I rolled up in my blankets and lay down upon 
the concrete floor very happily. And I slept better 
than I had before in Mexico. 
| At dawn we were in the saddle, larking up a steep 
roll of barren desert to get warm. It was bitter cold. 
The Tropa were wrapped in serapes up to their eyes, 
jo that they looked like colored toadstools under their 
great sombreros. The level rays of the sun, burning 


is they fell upon my face, caught them unaware, glori- 
ying the serapes to more brilliant colors than they 
vossessed. Isidro Amayo’s was of deep blue and yel- 
‘ow spirals; Juan Sanchez had one brick red, Captain 
"ernando’s was green and cerise; against them flashed 
» purple and black zigzag pattern.... 

_ We looked back to see the coach pulled to a stop, 
nd Patricio waving to us. Two of the mules had 
‘iven out, raw from the traces, and tottering with the 


43 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


fatigue of the last two days. The Tropa scattered to 
look for mules. Soon they came back, driving two 
great beautiful animals that had never seen harness. 
No sooner had they smelled the coach than they made 
a desperate break for freedom. And now the Tropa 
instantly went back to their native profession—they 
became vaqueros. It was a pretty sight, the rope- 
coils swinging in the air, the sudden snake-like shoot 
of the loops, the little horses bracing themselves against 
the shock of the running mule. Those mules were de- 
mons. ‘Time after time they broke the riatas; twice 
they overturned horse and rider. Pablo came to the 
rescue. He got on Sabas’s horse, drove in the spurs, 
and went after one mule. In three minutes he had 
roped him by the leg, thrown him, and tied him. Then» 
he took the second with equal dispatch. It was not 
for nothing that Pablo was Lieutenant-Colonel at 
twenty-six. Not only could he fight better than his 
men, but he could ride better, rope better, shoot better, 
chop wood better, and dance better. 

The mules’ legs were tied, and they were dragged 
with ropes to the coach, where the harness was slipped 
on them in spite of their frantic struggles. When all 
was ready, Patricio got on the box, seized the whip, 
and told us to cut away. The wild animals scrambled 
to their feet, bucking and squealing. Above the uproar 
came the crack of the heavy whip, and Patricio’s bel- 
low: “Andale! hijos de la Gran’ Ch——!” and they 
jerked forward, running, the big coach taking the ar 
royos like an express train. Soon it vanished behind 


4A 


LA TROPA ON THE MARCH 


its own pall of dust, and appeared hours afterward, 
crawling up the side of a great hill, miles away. .. . 

Panchito was eleven years old, already a trooper 
with a rifle too heavy for him, and a horse that they 
had to lift him on. His compadre was Victoriano, a 
veteran of fourteen. Seven others of the Tropa were 
under seventeen. And there was a sullen, Indian-faced 
woman, riding side-saddle, who wore two cartridge- 
belts. She rede with the hombres—slept with them in 
the cuartels. 

“Why are you fighting?” I asked her. 

She jerked her head toward the fierce figure of Ju- 
lian Reyes. 

“Because he is,” she answered. “He who stands 
under a good tree is sheltered by a good shade.” 

“A good rooster will crow in any chicken-coop,” 
capped Isidro. 

“A parrot is green all over,”? chimed in someone 
else. 

“Faces we see, but hearts we do not comprehend,” 
said José, sentimentally. 
At noon we roped a steer, and cut his throat. And 
because there was no time to build a fire, we ripped 
he meat from the carcase and ate it raw. 

“Oiga, meester,” shouted José. “Do the United 
States soldiers eat raw meat?” 

I said I didn’t think they did. 
- “It is good for the hombres. In the campaign we 
ave no time for anything but carne crudo. It makes 
is brave.” 


45 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


By late afternoon we had caught up with the coach, 
and galloped with it down through the dry arroyo 
and up through the other side, past the great ribota 
court that flanks the Hacienda of La Zarca. Unlike 
La Mimbrera, the Casa Grande here stands on a level 
place, with the peons’ houses in long rows at its flanks, 
and a flat desert barren of chaparral for twenty miles 
in front. Che Che Campa also paid a visit to La Zarca. 
The big house is a black and gaping ruin. 4 


CHAPTER V 


WHITE NIGHTS AT ZARCA 


F course, I took up quarters at the cuartel. 
() And right here I want to mention one fact, 

Americans had insisted that the Mexican was 
fundamentally dishonest—that I might expect to have 
my outfit stolen the first day out. Now for two weeks 
I lived with as rough a band of ex-outlaws as there 
was in the army. They were without discipline and 
without education. They were, many of them, Gringo- 
haters. They had not been paid a cent for six weeks, 
and some were so desperately poor that they couldn’t 
boast sandals or serapes. I was a stranger with a good 
outfit, unarmed. I had a hundred and fifty pesos, 
which I put conspicuously at the head of my bed when 
I slept. And I never lost a thing. But more than 
that, I was not permitted to pay for my food; and 
in a company where money was scarce and tobacco ak 


46 
Fi 


WHITE NIGHTS AT ZARCA 


most unknown, I was kept supplied with all I could 
smoke by the compaieros. Every suggestion from me 
that I should pay for it was an insult. 

The only thing possible was to hire music for a baile, 
Long after Juan Sanchez and I rolled up in our 
blankets that night, we could hear the rhythm of the 
music, and the shouts of the dancers. It must have 
been midnight when somebody threw open the door 
and yelled: “Meester! Oiga, meester! Are you asleep? 
Come to the baile! Arriba! Andale!” 

“Too sleepy!” I said. After some further argument 
the messenger departed, but in ten minutes back he 
came. “El Capitan Fernando orders you to come at 
once! Vamonos!’’ Now the others woke up. ‘‘Come to 
the baile, meester!” they shouted. Juan Sanchez sat 
up and began pulling on his shoes. “Now we’re off!” 
said he. ‘The meester is going to dance! Captain’s 
orders! Come on, meester!” 

“Yl go if all the Tropa does,” I said. They raised 
a yell at that, and the night was full of chuckling men 
pulling on their clothes. 

Twenty of us reached the house in a body. The 
mob of peons blocking door and window opened to Iet 
us pass. “The meester!” they cried. “The meester’s 
going to dance!” 
| Capitan Fernando threw his arms about me, roar- 
ing: “Here he comes, the compaftero! Dance now! Go 
to it! They’re going to dance the jota!” 

“But I don’t know how to dance the jota!”’ 
Patricio, flushed and panting, seized me by the arm. 


AT 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“Come on, it’s easy! Ill introduce you to the best 
girl in the Zarca!” i 

There was nothing to do. The window was jammed i 
with faces, and a hundred tried to crowd in at the > 
door. It was an ordinary room in a peon’s house, | 
whitewashed, with a humpy dirt floor. In the light of | 
two candles sat the musicians. The music struck up, 
“Puentes & Chihuahua.” A grinning silence fell. I 
gathered the young lady under my arm, and started 
the preliminary march around the room customary be- 
fore the dance begins. We waltzed painfully for a 
moment or two, and suddenly they all began to yell: 
“Ora! Ora! Now!” 

“What do you do now?” 

“Vuelta! Vuelta! Loose her!” a perfect yell. 

“But I don’t know how!” | 

“The fool doesn’t know how to dance,” cried one. 

Another began the mocking song: 


“The Gringos all are fools, 

They've never been m Sonora, 

And when they want to say: ‘Diez Reales,’ 
They call it ‘Dollar an’ a quart... .” 


But Patricio bounded into the middle of the floor, 
and Sabas after him; each seized a muchacha from 
the line of women sitting along one end of the room. 
And as I led my partner back to her seat, they 
“omelta’d.? First a few waltz steps,—then the man 
whirled away from the girl, snapping his fingers, 
throwing one arm up to cover his face, while the girl 


48 


WHITE NIGHTS AT ZARCA 
put one hand on her hip and danced after him. They 
approached each other, receded, danced around each 
other. The girls were dumpy and dull, Indian-faced 
and awkward, bowed at the shoulder from much grind- 
ing of corn and washing of clothes. Some of the 
men had on heavy boots, some none; many wore pis- 
tols and cartridge-belts, and a few carried rifles slung 


from their shoulders. 
The dance was always preceded by a grand march- 
around; then, after the couple had danced twice the 


circuit of the room, they walked again. There were 
two-steps, waltz and mazurka beside the jota. Each 
girl kept her eyes on the ground, never spoke, and 
stumbled heavily after you. Add to this a dirt floor 
full of arroyos, and you have a form of torture un- 
equaled anywhere in the world. It seemed to me I 
danced for hours, spurred on by the chorus: “Dance, 
meester! No floje! Keep it up! Don’t quit!” 

Later there was another jota, and here’s where I al- 
most got into trouble. I danced this one successfully 
—with another girl. And.afterward, when I asked my 
original partner to two-step, she was furiously angry. 

“You shamed me before them all,” said she. ‘‘Youw 
—you said you didn’t know how to dance the jota!” 
As we marched around the room, she appealed to her 
friends: “Domingo! Juan! Come out and take me 
away from this Gringo! He won’t dare to do any- 
thing!” 

Half a dozen of them started onto the floor, and 
the rest looked on. It was a ticklish moment. But all 


49 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


at once the good Fernando glided in front, a revolve 
in his hand. : 

“The Americano is my friend!” said he. “Get back 
there and mind your business! .. .” 4 


The horses were tired, so we rested a day in La 
Zarca. Behind the Casa Grande lay a ruined garden, 
full of gray alamo trees, figs, vines, and great barrel- 
cactuses. It was walled around by high adobe walls on 
three sides, over one of which the ancient white tower 
of the church floated in the blue sky. The fourth 
side opened upon a reservoir of yellow water, and be- 
yond it stretched the western desert, miles upon miles 
of tawny desolation. ‘Trooper Marin and I lay under. 
a fig tree, watching the vultures sail over us on quiet 
wing. Suddenly the silence was broken by loud, swift 
music. 

Pablo had found a pianola in the church, where it 
had escaped Che Che Campa’s notice the previous year; 
with it was one roll, the “Merry Widow Waltz.” Noth- 
ing would do but that we carry the instrument out into 
the ruined patio. We took turns playing the thing 
all day long; Rafaelito volunteering the information 
that the “Merry Widow” was Mexico’s most popular 
piece. A Mexican, he said, had composed it. | 

The finding of the pianola suggested that we give 
another baile that night, in the portico of the Casa 
Grande itself. Candles were stuck upon the pillars, the 
faint light flickering upon broken walls, burned and 
blackened doorways, the riot of wild vines that had 
twisted unchecked around the roof-beams. ‘The en- 


50 


: 


\ 
\. 


WHITE NIGHTS AT ZARCA 


tire patio was crowded with blanketed men, making 
holiday, even yet a little uncomfortable in the great 
house which they had never been allowed to enter. As 
soon as the orchestra had finished a dance, the pianola 
immediately took up the task. Dance followed dance, 
without any rest. A barrel of sotol further complicated 
things. As the evening wore on the assembly got more 
and more exhilarated. Sabas, who was Pablo’s orderly, 
led off with Pablo’s mistress. I followed. Immediately 
afterward Pablo hit her on the head with the butt end 
of his revolver, and said he’d shoot her if she danced 


with anyone else, and her partner too. After sitting 


some moments meditating, Sabas rose, pulled his re- 


volver, and informed tee harpist that he had played 


a wrong note. Then he shot at lim. Other com- 
paneros disarmed Sabas, who immediately went to sleep 
in the middle of the dance-floor. 

The interest in Meester’s dancing soon shifted to 
other phenomena. I sat down beside Julian Reyes, he 
with the Christ and Virgin on the front of his som- 
brero. He was far gone in sotol—his eyes burned like 
ja fanatic’s. 

He turned on me suddenly: 

“Are you going to fight with us?” 

“No,” I said. “I am a correspondent. I am for- 
bidden to fight.” 

“Tt is a lie,” he cried. “You don’t fight because 
you are afraid to fight. In the face of God, our Cause 
is Just.” 

“Yes, I know that. But my orders are not to fight.” 

“What do I care for orders?” he shrieked. ‘We 


51 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


want no correspondents. We want no words printed in 
a book. We want rifles and killing, and if we die we 
shall be caught up among the saints! Coward! Huer- 
TistaMNs) sole 

“That’s enough!” cried someone, and I looked up to 
see Longinos Giiereca standing over me. “Julian 
Reyes, you know nothing. This compafiero comes thou- 
sands of miles by the sea and the land to tell his coun- 
trymen the truth of the fight for Liberty. He goes 
into battle without arms, he’s braver than you are, be- 
cause you have a rifle. Get out now, and don’t bother 
him any more!” 

He sat down where Julian had been, smiled his home- 
ly, gentle smile, and took both my hands in his. 

“We shall be compadres, eh?” said Longinos Giiere- 
ca. ‘We shall sleep in the same blankets, and always 
be together. And when we get to the Cadena I shall 
take you to my home, and my father shall make you 
my brother. . . . I will show you the lost gold-mines 
of the Spaniards, the richest mines in the world... . 
We'll work them together, eh? ... We'll be rich, 
OnE yi 

And from that time on until the end, Longino 
Giiereca and I were always together. | 

But the baile grew wilder and wilder. Orchestie 
and pianola alternated without a break. Everybody 
was drunk now. Pablo was boasting horribly of killing” 
defenseless prisoners. Occasionally, some insult would 
be passed, and there would be a snapping of rifle levers” 
all over the place. Then perhaps the poor exhausted. 


52 


“QUIEN VIVE?’ 


women would begin to go home; and what an ominous 
shout would go up: “No vaya! Don’t go! Stop! 
Come back here and dance! Come back here!” And 
the dejected procession would halt and straggle back. 
At four o’clock, when somebody started the report that 
a Gringo Huertista spy was among us, I decided to 
go to bed. But the baile kept up until seven... . 


CHAPTER VI 
“QUIEN VIVE?” 


T dawn I woke to the sound of shooting, and a 
cracked bugle blowing wildly. Juan Sanchez 
stood in front of the cuartel, sounding Reveille ; 

he didn’t know which call Reveille was, so he played 
them all. 

Patricio had roped a steer for breakfast. The ani- 
mal started on a plunging, bellowing run for the desert, 
Patricio’s horse galloping alongside. The rest of the 
Tropa, only their eyes showing over their serapes, 
kneeled with their rifles to their shoulders. Crash! 
In that still air, the enormous sound of guns labored 
heavily up. The running steer jerked sideways,—his 
screaming reached us faintly. Crash! He fell head- 
long. His feet kicked in the air. Patricio’s pony 
jerked roughly up, and his serape flapped like a ban- 
ner. Just then the enormous sun rose bodily out of 
the east, pouring clear light over the barren plain like 
mesea. .. . 


| 


53 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Pablo emerged from the Casa Grande, leaning on 
his wife’s shoulder. | 
“IT am going to be very ill,” he groaned, suiting the 
action to the word. ‘Juan Reed will ride my horse.” 
He got into the coach, weakly took the guitar, and 


sang: 


| 

“I remained at the foot of a green maguey ) 

My ungrateful love went away with another. | 
I awoke to the song of the lark: 

Oh, what a hangover I have, and the barkeeps oom 

trust me! . 

| 


“O God, take away this sickness, 1 
I feel as if I were surely going to die— 

The Virgm of pulque and whisky must save me: 

O what a hangover, and nothing to drink! . . .” 


It is some sixty-five miles from La Zarca to the 
Hacienda of La Cadena, where the Tropa was to be 
stationed. We rode it in one day, without water and 
without food. The coach soon left us far behind. 
Pretty soon, the barrenness of the land gave way to 
spiny, hostile vegetation,—the cactus and the mesquite, 
We strung out along a deep rut between the gigantic 
chaparral, choked with the mighty cloud of alkal 
dust, scratched and torn by the thorny brush. Som 
times emerging in an open space, we could see the 
straight road climbing the summits of the rolling 
desert, until the eye couldn’t follow it; but we knew if 
must be there, still farther and farther again. Not ¢ 


54 


“QUIEN VIVE?” 


breath of wind stirred. The vertical sun beat down 
with a fury that made one reel. And most of the troop, 
who had been drunk the night before, began to suffer 
‘terribly. Their lips glazed, cracked, turned dark blue. 
‘I didn’t hear a single word of complaint; but there 
was nothing of the lighthearted joking and rollicking 
of other days. José Valiente taught me how to chew 
mesquite twigs, but that didn’t help much. 
When we had been riding for hours, Fidencio pointed 
ahead, saying huskily: “Here comes a christiano!” 
‘When you realize that word christiano, which now 
means simply Man, is descended among the Indians 
from immeasurable antiquity,—and when the man that 
says it looks exactly as Guatemozin might have looked, 
it gives you curious sensations. The christiano in ques- 
tion was a very aged Indian driving a burro. No, he 
said, he didn’t carry any water. But Sabas leaped 
from his horse and tumbled the old man’s pack on the 
ground. 

“Ah! he cried; “fine! Tres piedras!” and held up 
a root of the sotol plant, which looks like a varnished 
sentury-plant, and oozes with intoxicating juices. We 
jivided it as you divide an artichoke, Pretty soon 
everybody felt better... . 

It was at the end of the afternoon that we rounded 
t shoulder of the desert and saw ahead the gigantic 
ishen alamo trees that surrounded the spring of the 
dacienda of Santo Domingo. A pillar of brown dust, 
ike the smoke of a burning city, rose from the corral, 
vhere vaqueros were roping horses. Desolate and alone 


tood the Casa Grande, burned by Che Che Campa a 
55 


: 
INSURGENT MEXICO 


year ago. And by the spring, at the foot of the alamo | 
trees, a dozen wandering peddlers squatted arounds 
their fire, their burros munching corn. From the foun- : 
tain to the adobe houses and back moved an endless_ 
chain of women water-carriers,—the symbol of north- | 
ern Mexico. 

“Water !? we shouted, joyously, galloping down the | 
hill. The coach-horses were already at the spring with | 
Patricio. Leaping from their saddles, the Tropa threw | 
themselves on their bellies. Men and horses indiscrimi- | 
nately thrust in their heads, and drank and drank. . . . 
It was the most glorious sensation I have ever felt. | 

“Who has a cigarro?” cried somebody. For a few) 
blessed minutes we lay on our backs smoking. The 
sound of music—gay music—made me sit up. And, 
there, across my vision, moved the strangest proces- 
sion in the world. First came a ragged peon carrying 
the flowering branch of some tree. Behind him, an- 
other bore upon his head a little box that looked like 
a coffin, painted in broad strips of blue, pink and. 
silver. There followed four men, carrying a sort of 
canopy made of gay-colored bunting. A woman walked 
beneath it, though the canopy hid her down to the 
waist; but on top lay the body of a little girl, with 
bare feet and little brown hands crossed on her breast. 
There was a wreath of paper flowers in her hair, and 
her whole body was heaped with them. A _ harpist 
brought up the rear, playing a popular waltz called 
“Recuerdos de Durango.’ ‘The funeral procession 
moved slowly and gaily along, passing the ribota court, 
where the players never ceased their handball game, 


56 


by ~ 
Yl 


“QUIEN VIVE?’ 


to the little Campo Santo. “Bah!” spat Julian Reyes 


furiously. “That is a blasphemy to the dead!” 


In the late sunshine the desert was a glowing thing. 
We rode in a silent, enchanted land, that seemed some 
kingdom under the sea. All around were great cactuses 


_colored red, blue, purple, yellow, as coral is on the 


| 
| 


ocean bed. Behind us, to the west, the coach rolled 
along in a glory of dust like Elijah’s chariot... . 
Eastward, under a sky already darkening to stars, 
were the rumpled mountains behind which lay La Ca- 


dena, the advance post of the Maderista army. It 
was a land to love—this Mexico—a land to fight for. 
The ballad-singers suddenly began the interminable 
| song of “The Bull-Fight,” in which the Federal chiefs 
are the bulls, and the Maderista generals the torreros; 


and as I looked at the gay, lovable, humble hombres 


who had given so much of their lives and of their com- 


fort to the brave fight, I couldn’t help but think of the 
little speech Villa made to the foreigners who left Chi- 
huahua in the first refugee train: 

“This is the latest news for you to take to your peo- 
ple. There shall be no more palaces in Mexico. The 
tortillas of the poor are better than the bread of the 
mech. Come!.. .” 

It was late night—past eleven—when the coach broke 


‘down on a stretch of rocky road between high moun- 
tains. I stopped to get my blankets; and when I 


started on again, the compafieros had long vanished 
down the winding road. Somewhere near, I knew, was 
La Cadena. At any minute now a sentinel might start 


57 


<> 
X 


INSURGENT MEXICO | 
up out of the chaparral. For about a mile I de 
scended a steep road that was often the dried bed of 
a river, winding down between high mountains. It was 
a black night, without stars, and bitter cold. Finally, 
the mountains opened into a vast plain, and across that, 


I could faintly see the tremendous range of the Cadena, 
and the pass that the Tropa was to guard. Barely 
three leagues beyond that pass lay Mapimi, held by 
twelve hundred Federals. But the hacienda was still 
hidden by a roll of the desert. | 

I was quite upon it, without being challenged, be- 
fore I saw it, an indistinct white square of buildings on 
the other side of a deep arroyo. And still no sentinel. 
“That’s funny,” I said to myself. “They don’t keep 
very good watch here.” I plunged down into the ar- 
royo, and climbed up the other side. In one of the 
great rooms of the Casa Grande were lights and music. 
Peering through, I saw the indefatigable Sabas whirl- 
ing in the mazes of the jota, and Isidro Amayo, and 
José Valiente. <A baile! Just then a man with a gun 
lounged out of the lighted doorway. 

“Quien vive?” he shouted, lazily. 

“Madero!” I shouted. 

“May he live!” returned the sentinel, and went back 
to the baile. ... | 


nal 


AN OUTPOST OF THE REVOLUTION 


} CHAPTER VII 


AN OUTPOST OF THE REVOLUTION 

HERE were a hundred and fifty of us stationed 
h at La Cadena, the advance guard of all the 
7 Maderista army to the West. Our business 
was to guard a pass, the Puerta de la Cadena; but 
the troops were quartered at the hacienda, ten miles 
away. It stood upon a little plateau, a deep arroyo 
on one side, at the bottom of which a sunken river 
came to the surface for perhaps a hundred yards, and 
vanished again. As far as the eye could reach up and 
down the broad valley was the fiercest kind of desert, 
—dried creek-beds, and a thicket of chaparral, cac- 
cus and sword plant. 

Directly east lay the Puerta, breaking the tremen- 
lous mountain range that blotted out half the sky and 
xtended north and south beyond vision, wrinkled like 
t giant’s bed-clothes. The desert tilted up to meet the 
zap, and beyond was nothing but the fierce blue of 
itainless Mexican sky. From the Puerta you could see 
ifty miles across the vast arid plain that the Spaniards 
1amed Llano de los Gigantes, where the little moun-~ 
ains lie tumbled about; and four leagues away the low 
sray houses of Mapimi. There lay the enemy; twelve 
wundred colorados, or Federal irregulars, under the 
nfamous Colonel Argumendo. The colorados are the 
vandits that made Orozco’s revolution. ‘They were 
0 called because their flag was red, and because their 


59 


— 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


hands were red with slaughter, too. They swept 
through Northern Mexico, burning, pillaging and rob- 
bing the poor. In Chihuahua, they cut the soles from 
the feet of one poor devil, and drove him a mile across 
the desert before he died. And I have seen a city of 
four thousand souls reduced to five after a visit by the 
colorados. When Villa took Torreon, there was no 
mercy for the colorados; they are always shot. 

The first day we reached La Cadena, twelve of them 
rode up to reconnoiter. Twenty-five of the Tropa were 
on guard at the Puerta. They captured one colorado, 
They made him get off his horse, and took away his 
rifle, clothes and shoes. Then they made him run nake 
through a hundred yards of chaparral and cactus, 
shooting at him. Juan Sanchez finally dropped him, 
screaming, and thereby won the rifle, which he brought 
back as a present to me. The colorado they left te 
the great Mexican buzzards, which flap lazily above 
the desert all day long. | 

When all this happened, my compadre, Captait 
Longinos Giiereca, and Trooper Juan Vallejo, and I, 
had borrowed the Colonel’s coach for a trip to th 
dusty little rancho of Bruquilla,—Longinos’ home. I 
lay four desert leagues to the north, where a sprin 
burst miraculously out of a little white hill. Ok 
Giiereca was a white-haired peon in sandals. He h " 
been born a slave on one of the great haciendas; b 


years of toil, too appalling to realize, had made hin 
that rare being in Mexico, the independent owner 6 
a small property. He had ten children,—soft, dark 


60 


AN OUTPOST OF THE REVOLUTION 


skinned girls, and sons that looked like New England 
farmhands,—and a daughter in the grave. 

l The Giierecas were proud, ambitious, warm-hearted 
folk. Longinos said: “This is my dearly loved friend, 
Juan Reed, and my brother.” And the old man and 
phis wife put both their arms around me and patted 
me on the back, in the affectionate way Mexicans em- 
brace. 

“My family owes nothing to the Revolucion,” said 
Gino, proudly. “Others have taken money and horses 
and wagons. The jefes of the army have become rich 
from the property of the great haciendas. The Giiere- 
cas have given all to the Maderistas, and have taken 
nothing but my rank... .” 

The old man, however, was a little bitter. Holding 
up a horsehair rope, he said: “Three years ago I had 
four riatas like this. Now I have only one. One the 
colorados took, and the other Urbina’s people took, 
ind the last one José Bravo. . .. What difference 
loes it make which side robs you?” But he didn’t 
mean it all. He was immensely proud of his youngest 
on, the bravest officer in all the army. 


We sat in the long adobe room, eating the most 
»xquisite cheese, and tortillas with fresh goat-butter, 
—the deaf old mother apologizing in a loud voice for 
the poverty of the food, and her warlike son reciting 
uis personal Iliad of the nine-days’ fight around Tor- 
veon. 

“We got so close,” he was saying, “that the hot 
ir and burning powder stung us in the face. We 
sot too close to shoot, so we clubbed our rifles 4 


61 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Just then all the dogs began to bark at once. We 
leaped from our seats. One didn’t know what to ex- 
pect in the Cadena those days. It was a small boy 
on horseback, shouting that the colorados were enter- 
ing the Puerta—and off he galloped. 

Longinos roared to put the mules in the coach. The 
entire family fell to work with a fury, and in five min- 
utes Longinos dropped on one knee and kissed his 
father’s hand, and we were tearing down the road. 
“Don’t be killed! Don’t be killed! Don’t be killed! 
we could hear the Sefiora wailing. | 

We passed a wagon loaded with corn-stalks, with a 
whole family of women and children, two tin trunks, 
and an iron bed, perched on top. The man of the 


family rode a burro. Yes, the colorados were coming 
—thousands of them pouring through the Puerta. The 
last time the colorados had come they had killed his 
daughter. For three years there had been war im 
this valley, and he had not complained. Because it 
was for the Patria. Now they would go to the United 
But Juan lashed the mules cruelly, 
and we heard no more. Farther along was an old mar 
without shoes, placidly driving some goats. Had he 
heard about the colorados? Well, there had been som 
gossip about colorados. Were they coming througl 
the Puerta, and how many? 

“Pues, quien sabe, senor!” | 

At last, yelling at the staggering mules, we cam( 
into camp just in time to see the victorious Tropé 
straggle in across the desert, firing off many mor 


States where 


rounds of ammunition than they had used in the fight 
62 ; 


AN OUTPOST OF THE REVOLUTION 


They moved low along the ground, scarcely higher on 
their broncos than the drab mesquite through which 
they flashed, all big sombreros and flapping gay se- 
rapes, the last sunshine on their lifted rifles. 

That very night came a courier from General Ur- 
bina, saying that he was ill and wanted Pablo Seajfies 
to come back. So off went the great coach, and Pa- 
blo’s mistress, and Raphaelito, the hunchback, and Fi- 

dencio, and Patricio. Pablo said to me: ‘“Juanito, if 
| you want to come back with us, you shall sit beside me 
in the coach.” Patricio and Raphaelito begged me to 
come. But I had got so far to the front now that I 
didn’t want to turn back. Then the next day my 


friends and compaieros of the Tropa, whom I had — 


learned to know so well in our march across the desert, 
‘received orders to move to Jarralitos. Only Juan 
| Vallejo and Longinos Giiereca stayed behind. 

_ The Cadena’s new garrison were a different kind of 
‘men. God knows where they came from, but it was a 
|place where the troopers had literally starved. They 
were the most wretchedly poor peons that I have ever 
| seen—about half of them didn’t have serapes. Some 
| fifty were known to be nuevos who had never smelt 
| powder, about the same number were under a dread- 
fully incompetent old party named Major Salazar, and 
the remaining fifty were equipped with old carbines and 
ten rounds of ammunition apiece. Our commanding 
officer was Lieutenant-Colonel Petronilo Hernandez, 
who had been six years a Major in the Federal army 
until the murder of Madero drove him to the other side. 
He was a brave, good-hearted little man, with twisted 


63 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


shoulders, but years of official army red tape had un- 
fitted him to handle troops like these. Every morning 
he issued an Order of the Day, distributing guards, 
posting sentinels, and naming the officer on duty. No- 
body ever read it. Officers in that army have nothing 
to do with the disciplining or ordering of soldiers. 
They are officers because they have been brave, and 
their job is to fight at the head of their troop—that’s 
all. The soldiers all look up to some one General, un- 
der whom they are recruited, as to their feudal lord. 
They call themselves his gente—his people; and an 
officer of anybody else’s gente hasn’t much authority 
over them. Petronilo was of Urbina’s gente; but two- 
thirds of the Cadena garrison belonged to Arrieta’s 
division. 'That’s why there were no sentinels to the 
west and north. Lieutenant-Colonel Alberto Redondo 
guarded another pass four leagues to the south, so we 
thought we were safe in that direction. True, twenty- 
five men did outpost duty at the Puerta, and the 
Puerta was strong. ... 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE FIVE MUSKETEERS 


HE Casa Grande of La Cadena had been sacked, 
of course, by Che Che Campa the year be-— 
fore. In the patio were corraled the officers’ © 

horses. We slept on the tiled floors of the rooms sur- 
rounding it. In the sala of the owner, once barbari- — 


64 


THE FIVE MUSKETEERS 


cally decorated, pegs were driven into the walls to 
hang saddles and bridles on, rifles and sabers were 
stacked against the wall, and dirty blanket-rolls lay 
flung into the corner. At night a fire of corn-cobs was 
built in the middle of the floor, and we squatted around 
it, while Apolinario and fourteen-year-old Gil Tomas, 
who was once a colorado, told stories of the Bloody 
Three Years. 

“At the taking of Durango,” said Apolinario, “TI 
was of the gente of Captain Borunda; he that they 
call the Matador, because he always shoots his prison- 
ers. But when Urbina took Durango there weren’t 
many prisoners. So Borunda, thirsty for blood, made 
the rounds of all the saloons. And in every one he 
would pick out some unarmed man and ask him if he 
were a Federal. ‘No, sefior,’ the man would say. ‘You 
deserve death because you have not told the truth? 
‘yelled Borunda, pulling his gun. Bang!” 

We all laughed heartily at this. 
“That reminds me,” broke in Gil, “of the time I 
fought with Rojas in Orozco’s—(cursed be his 
mother !)—Revolucion. An old Porfirista officer de- 
‘serted to our side, and Orozco sent him out to teach 
the colorados (animals!) how to drill. There was one 
droll fellow in our company. Oh! he had a fine sense 
of humor. He pretended he was too stupid to learn 
the manual of arms. So this cursed old Huertista— 
(may he fry in hell!)—made him drill alone. 
“ ‘Shoulder arms!’ The compafero did it all right. 
‘Present arms!’ Perfectly. 


65 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“ ‘Port arms!’ He acted like he didn’t know how, 
so the old fool went around and took hold of the rifle. 

‘This way! says he, pulling on it. 

“Oh! says the fellow, ‘that way!’ And he let him | 
have the bayonet right in the chest. . . .” | 

After that Fernando Silveyra, the paymaster, re- 
counted a few anecdotes of the curas, or priests, that 
sounded exactly like Touraine in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, or the feudal rights of landlords over their women 
tenants before the French Revolution. Fernando ought 
to have known, too, for he was brought up for the 
Church. There must have been about twenty of us — 
sitting around that fire, all the way from the most mis- _ 
erably poor peon in the Tropa up to First Captain | 
Longinos Giiereca. There wasn’t one of these men 
who had any religion at all, although once they had all 
been strict Catholics. But three years of war have 
taught the Mexican people many things. There will 
never be another Porfirio Diaz; there will never be 
another Orozco Revolution; and the Catholic Church in | 
Mexico will never again be the voice of God. 

Then Juan Santillanes, a twenty-two-year-old sub- 
teniente, who seriously informed me that he was de- | 
scended from the great Spanish hero, Gil Blas, piped _ 
up the ancient disreputable ditty, which begins: 


“IT am Count Oliveros 
Of the Spanish artillery. . . .” 


Juan proudly displayed four bullet wounds. He — 
had killed a few defenseless prisoners with his own gun, — 


66 


THE FIVE MUSKETEERS 


he said; giving promise of growing up to be muy mata- 

dor (a great killer) some day. He boasted of being the 
strongest and bravest man in the army. His idea of 
humor seemed to be breaking eggs into the pocket of 
my coat. Juan was very young for his years, but 
yery likable. 

But the best friend I had beside ’Gino Giiereca was 
Subteniente Luis Martinez. They called him “Gachu- 
pine”—the contemptuous name for Spaniards—be- 
cause he might have stepped out of a portrait of some 
noble Spanish youth by Greco. Luis was pure race— 
‘sensitive, gay and high-spirited. He was only twenty, 
and had never been in battle. Around the contour of 
his face was a faint black beard. 

He fingered it, grinning. ‘“Nicanor and I made a 
bet that we wouldn’t shave until we took Torreon. 


9 


Luis and [I slept in different rooms. But at night, 
when the fire had gone out and the rest of the fellows 
‘were snoring, we sat at each other’s blankets—one 
night in his cuartel, the one next to mine—talking 
about the world, our girls, and what we were going to 
be and to do when we really got at it. When the war 
‘was over, Luis was coming to the United States to visit 
me; and then we were both coming back to Durango 
City to visit the Martinez family. He showed me the 
photograph of a little baby, proudly boasting that he 
was an uncle already. “What will you do when the 
bullets begin to fly?” I asked him. 

“Quien sabe?” he laughed. “I guess I’ll run!” 

It was late. The sentinel at the door had long since 


67 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


gone to sleep. ‘Don’t go,” said Luis, grabbing my 


93 


coat. “Let’s gossip a little longer... . 


| 
i 


’°Gino, Juan Santillanes, Silveyra, Luis, Juan Vallejo 


and I rode up the arroyo to bathe in a pool that was 


rumored to be there. It was a scorched river bed filled - 
with white-hot sand, rimmed with dense mesquite and 
cactus. Every kilometer the hidden river showed itself | 


for a little space, only to disappear at a crackling 
white rim of alkali. First came the horse pool, the 


troopers and their wretched ponies gathered around it; 
one or two squatting on the rim, scooping water up | 
against the animals’ sides with calabashes. . . . Above | 
them kneeled the women at their eternal laundry on the | 
stones. Beyond that the ancient path from the ha-_ 


cienda cut across, where the never-ending line of black- 


shawled women moved with water-jars on their heads. 
Still farther up were women bathers, wrapped round | 


and round with yards of pale blue or white cotton, and 


naked brown babies splashing in the shallows. And, last | 
of all, naked brown men, with sombreros on and bright- 


colored serapes draped over their shoulders, smoked 


their hojas, squatting on the rocks. We flushed a coy- 


ote up there, and scrambled steeply up to the desert, 


pulling at our revolvers. There he went! We spurred 
into the chaparral on the dead run, shooting and yell- 


ing. But of course he got away. And later, much 
later, we found the mythical pool—a cool, deep basin 


worn in the solid rock, with green weeds growing on the 


bottom. 


When we got back, ’Gino Giiereca became greatly ex- 


68 


THE FIVE MUSKETEERS 


cited, because his new tordillo horse had come from 
- Bruquilla—a four-year-old stallion that his father had 


raised for him to ride at the head of his company. 


b] 


“If he is dangerous,” announced Juan Santillanes, 


as we hurried out, “I want to ride him first. I love to 


subdue dangerous horses!’ 

A mighty cloud of yellow dust filled all the corral, 
rising high into the still air. Through it appeared the 
dim chaotic shapes of many running horses. Their 
hoofs made dull thunder. Men were vaguely visible, all 


braced legs and swinging arms, handkerchiefs bound 


over their faces; wide-spreading rope coils lifted, 
circling. The big gray felt the loop tighten on his 


neck. He trumpeted and plunged; the vaquero twisted 


the rope around his hip, lying back almost to the 
ground, feet plowing the dirt. Another noose gripped 
the horse’s hind legs—and he was down. They put a 
saddle on him and a rope halter. 

“Want to ride him, Juanito?” grinned ’Gino. 

“After you,” answered Juan with dignity. ‘“He’s 
your horse... .” 

But Juan Vallejo already was astride, shouting to 


them to loose the ropes. With a sort of squealing roar, 
the tordillo struggled up, and the earth trembled to his 


furious fight. 


We dined in the ancient kitchen of the hacienda, sit- 
ting on stools around a packing box. The ceiling was 
a rich, greasy brown, from the smoke of generations 
of meals. One entire end of the room was taken up by 


immense adobe stoves, ovens, and fireplaces, with four 


69 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


or five ancient crones bending over them, stirring pots 
and turning tortillas. The fire was our only light, 
flickering strangely over the old women; lighting up - 
the black wall, up which the smoke fled, to wreathe — 
around the ceiling and finally pour from the window. 
There were Colonel Petronilo, his mistress, a strangely 
beautiful peasant woman with a pock-marked face, who 
always seemed to be laughing to herself about some-— 
thing; Don Tomas, Luis Martinez, Colonel Redondo, 
Major Salazar, Nicanor, and I. The Colonel’s mistress 
seemed uncomfortable at the table; for a Mexican peas- 
ant woman is a servant in her house. But Don Petro- 
nilo always treated her as if she were a great lady. 

Redondo had just been telling me about the girl 
he was going to marry. He showed me her picture. 
She was even then on her way to Chihuahua to get her 
wedding dress. ‘‘As soon as we take Torreon,” he said. 

“Oiga, senor!” Salazar touched me on the arm. 
“TY have found out who you are. You are an agent of 
American business men who have vast interests in Mex- 
ico. I know all about American business. You are an 
agent of the trusts. You come down here to spy upon 
the movement of our troops, and then you will se- 
cretly send them word. Is it not true?” 

“How could I secretly send anybody any word from 
here?” I asked. ‘“We’re four days’ hard ride from a 
telegraph line.” 

“Ah, J know,” he grinned cunningly, wabbling a fin- 
ger at me. “I know many things; I have much in the - 
head.” He was standing up now. The Major suffered | 
badly from gout; his legs were wrapped in yards and — 


70 


THE FIVE MUSKETEERS 


yards of woolen bandages, which made them look like 
tamales. “I know all about business. I have studied 
much in my youth. These American trusts are invad- 
ing Mexico to rob the Mexican people ¥ 

’ interrupted Don Petro- 
nilo sharply. “This sefior is my friend and my guest.” 

“Listen, mi Coronel,’ Salazar burst out with unex- 
pected violence. “This sefior is a spy. All Americans 
are Porfiristas and Huertistas. Take this warning be- 
fore it is too late. I have much in the head. I ama 
very smart man. Take this Gringo out and shoot him 
—at once. Or you will regret it.” 

A clamor of voices burst out all together from the 
others, but it was interrupted by another sound—a 
shot, and then another, and men shouting. 

Came a trooper running. “Mutiny in the ranks!” 
he cried. ‘They won’t obey orders!” 

“Who won’t?” snapped Don Petronilo. 

“The gente of Salazar!” 

“Bad people!” exclaimed Nicanor as we ran. “They 
were colorados captured when we took ‘Torreon. 
Joined us so we wouldn’t kill ’°em. Ordered out to- 
night to guard the Puerta!” 


> 


*“You’re mistaken, Major,’ 


“Till to-morrow,’ 
going to bed!” 

The peons’ houses at La Cadena, where the troops 
were quartered, enclosed a great square, like a walled 
town. ‘There were two gates. At one we forced our 
way through a mob of women and peons fighting to get 
out. Inside, there were dim lights from doorways, and 
three or four little fires in the open air. A bunch of 


71 


said Salazar at this point, “I’m 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


frightened horses crowded one another in a corner, 
Men ran wildly in and out of their cuartels, with rifles 
in their hands. In the center of the open space stood 
a group of about fifty men, mostly armed, as if to repel 
an attack. | 

“Guard those gates!” cried the Colonel. ‘Don’t let 
anybody out without an order from me!” The run- 
ning troops began to mass at the gates. Don Petro- 
nilo walked out alone into the middle of the square. 

“What’s the trouble, compaiteros?” he asked quietly, 

“They were going to kill us all!” yelled somebody 
from the darkness. “They wanted to escape! They 
were going to betray us to the colorados!”’ 

“It’s a lie!” cried those in the center. “We are not 
Don Petronilo’s gente! Our jefe is Manuel Arrieta!” 

Suddenly Longinos Giiereca, unarmed, flashed by us 
and fell upon them furiously, wrenching away their 
rifles and throwing them far behind. For a moment it 
looked as if the rebels would turn on him, but they did 
not resist. 

“Disarm them!” ordered Don Petronilo. “And lock 
them up!” | 

They herded the prisoners into one large room, with 
an armed guard at the door. And long after midnight 
I could hear them hilariously singing. 

That left Don Petronilo with a hundred effectives, 
some extra horses with running sores on their backs, 
and two thousand rounds of ammunition, more or less, 
Salazar took himself off in the morning, after recom- 
mending that all his gente be shot; he was evidently 
greatly relieved to be rid of them. Juan Santillanes 


72 


THE LAST NIGHT 


was in favor of execution, too. But Don Petronilo de- 
cided to send them to General Urbina for trial. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE LAST NIGHT 


the cold dawn, when the river pools were 

filmed with ice, a trooper would gallop into the 

great square with a plunging steer at the end of his 
rope. Fifty or sixty ragged soldiers, only their eyes 
showing between serapes and big sombreros, would be- 
gin an amateur bull-fight, to the roaring delight of the 
rest of the compaieros. They waved their blankets, 
shouting the correct bull-fight cries. One would twist 
the infuriated animal’s tail. Another, more impatient, 
beat him with the flat of a sword. Instead of ban- 
‘derillas, they stuck daggers into his shoulder—his hot 
blood spattering them as he charged. And when at 
last he was down and the merciful knife in his brain, a 
mob fell upon the carcase, cutting and ripping, and 
bearing off chunks of raw meat to their cuartels. Then 
the white, burning sun would rise suddenly behind the 
Puerta, stinging your hands and face. And the pools 
of blood, the faded patterns of the serapes, the far 
reaches of umber desert glowed and became vivid. .. . 
Don Petronilo had confiscated several coaches in the 
campaign. We borrowed them for many an excursion 
—the five of us. Once it was a trip to San Pedro del 


713 


| he days at La Cadena were full of color. In 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Gallo to see a cock-fight, appropriately enough. An- 
other time ’Gino Giiereca and I went to see the fabu- 
lously rich lost mines of the Spaniards, which he knew. 
But we never got past Bruquilla—just lounged in the 
shade of the trees and ate cheese all day. 


Late in the afternoon the Puerta guard trotted out — 


to their post, the late sun soft on their rifles and car- 
tridge-belts; and long after dark the detachment re- 
lieved came jingling in out of the mysterious dark. 

The four peddlers whom I had seen in Santo Do- 
mingo arrived that night. They had four burro loads 
of macuche to sell the soldiers. 

“It’s meester!” they cried, when I came down to 
their little fire. “Que tal, meester? How goes it? 
Aren’t you afraid of the colorados?” 


“How is business?” I asked, accepting the heaped-— 


up handful of macuche they gave me. 
They laughed uproariously at this. 


“Business! Far better for us if we had stayed in 


Santo Domingo! This Tropa couldn’t buy one cigarro 
93 


if they clubbed their money! .. . 


One of them began to sing that extraordinary bal-— 


lad, “The Morning Song to Francisco Villa.” He sang 
one verse, and then the next man sang a verse, and so 
on around, each man composing a dramatic account of 


the deeds of the Great Captain. For half an hour I 
lay there, watching them, as they squatted between 
their knees, serapes draped loosely from their shoul- 
ders, the firelight red on their simple, dark faces. i 


74 


THE LAST NIGHT 


While one man sang the others stared upon the ground, 
wrapt in composition. 


“Here is Francisco Villa 
With his chiefs and his officers, 
Who come to saddle the short-horns 
Of the Federal Army. 


“Get ready now, colorados, 
Who have been talking so loud, 
For Villa and his soldiers 
Will soon take off your hides! 


“To-day has come your tamer, 
The Father of Rooster Tamers, 
To run you out of Torreon— 
To the devil with your skins! 


“The rich with all their money 
Have already got their lashing, 
As the soldiers of Urbina 
Can tell, and those of Maclovio Herrera. 


“Fly, fly away, little dove, 
Fly over all the prairies, 
And say that Villa has come 
To drive them all out forever. 


: “Ambition will ruin itself, 
And justice will be the winner, 
For Villa has reached Torreon 
To punish the avaricious.” 


75 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“Fly away, Royal Eagle, 
These laurels carry to Villa, 
For he has come to conquer 
Bravo and all his colonels. 


“Now you sons of the Mosquito, 
Your pride will come to an end, ¥ 
If Villa has come to Torreon, 
It ts because he could do it! 


“Viva Villa and his soldiers! 
Viva Herrera and his gente! 
You have seen, wicked people, 
What a brave man can do. 


“With this now I say good-bye; 
By the Rose of Castile, 
Here is the end of my rhyme 
To the great General Villa!” 


After a while I slipped away, and I doubt if they 
even saw me go. They sang around their fire for more 
than three hours. 

But in our cuartel there was other entertainment. 
The room was full of smoke from the fire on the floor. 
Through it I dimly made out some thirty or forty 
troopers squatting or sprawled at full length—per- 
fectly silent as Silveyra read aloud a proclamation 
from the Governor of Durango forever condemning the 
lands of the great haciendas to be divided among the 
poor. | 


ee 


76 


THE LAST NIGHT 


He read: 


“Considering: that the principal cause of discontent 
among the people in our State, which forced them to 
spring to arms in the year 1910, was the absolute lack of 
individual property; and that the rural classes have no 
means of subsistence in the present, nor any hope for the 
future, except to serve as peons on the haciendas of the 
_great land owners, who have monopolized the soil of the 
State; 
“Considering: that the principal branch of our national 
\ riches is agriculture, and that there can be no true progress 
“in agriculture without that the majority of farmers have 
a personal interest in making the earth produce. .. . 
“Considering, finally: that the rural towns have been 
‘reduced to the deepest misery, because the common lands 
which they once owned have gone to augment the prop- 
erty of the nearest hacienda, especially under the Dicta- 
torship of Diaz; with which the inhabitants of the State 
lost their economic, political, and social independence, 
‘then passed from the rank of citizens to that of slaves, 
) without the Government being able to lift the moral level 
‘through education, because the hacienda where they lived 
‘is private property... . 
, “Therefore, the Government of the State of Durango 
,declares it a public necessity that the inhabitants of the 
towns and villages be the owners of agricultural lands. 


9 


. . . 


When the paymaster had painfully waded through 
all the provisions that followed, telling how the land 
was to be applied for, etc., there was a silence. 
“That,” said Martinez, “is the Mexican Revolucion.” 


77 


| 
} 
| 
} 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“It’s just what Villa’s doing in Chihuahua,” I said. 
“It’s great. All you fellows can have a farm now.” 

An amused chuckle ran around the circle. Then a 
little, bald-headed man, with yellow, stained whiskers, 
sat up and spoke. 

“Not us,” he said, “not the soldiers. After a Revo- 
lucion is done it wants no more soldiers. It is the 
pacificos who will get the land—those who did not 


9 
e 


fight. And the next generation. . He paused 
and spread his torn sleeves to the fire. “I was a school 
teacher,” he explained, “so I know that Revolucions, 
like Republics, are ungrateful. I have fought three 
years. At the end of the first Revolucion that great 
man, Father Madero, invited his soldiers to the Capital. 
He gave us clothes, and food, and bull-fights. We re- 
turned to our homes and found the greedy again in 
power.” 


” said a man, 


“TI ended the war with forty-five pesos, 
“You were lucky,”’ continued the schoolmaster. “No, 
it is not the troopers, the starved, unfed, common sol-_ 
diers who profit by the Revolucion. Officers, yes" 
Lore they get fat on the blood of the Patria. But 
we—no.’ ; 
“What on earth are you fighting for?” I cried. : 
“I have two little sons,” he answered. “And they 
will get their land. And they will have other little sons. 
They, too, will never want for food... .” The little 
man grinned. “We have a proverb in Guadalajara: 
‘Do not wear a shirt of eleven yards, for he who wan 
to be a Redeemer will be crucified.’ ” 


78 


THE LAST NIGHT 


 “Pve got no little son,” said fourteen-year-old Gil 
Tomas, amid shouts of laughter. “I’m fighting so I 
can get a thirty-thirty rifle from some dead Federal, 
_and a good horse that belonged to a millionaire.” 
Just for fun I asked a trooper with a photo button 

_of Madero pinned to his coat who that was. 
“Pues, quien sabe, sefior?” he replied. “My captain 
told me he was a great saint. I fight because it is not 
so hard as to work.” 

“How often are you fellows paid?” 

“We were paid three pesos just nine months ago to- 
night,” said the schoolmaster, and they all nodded. 
“We are the real volunteers. The gente of Villa are 


_ professionals.” 

Then Luis Martinez got a guitar and sang a beauti- 
ful little love song, which he said a prostitute had made 
up one night in a bordel. 

The last thing I remember of that memorable night 
was ’Gino Giiereca lying near me in the dark, talking. 

“To-morrow,” he said, “I shall take you to the lost 
_gold-mines of the Spaniards. They are hidden in a 
-cafion in the Western mountains. Only the Indians 
know of them—and I. The Indians go there some- 
times with knives and dig the raw gold out of the 
_ground. We’ll be rich... .” 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


CHAPTER X 


THE COMING OF THE COLORADOS 


EFORE sunrise next morning, Fernando Sil- 
veyra, fully dressed, came into the room and 
said calmly to get up, that the colorados were 

coming. Juan Vallejo laughed: ‘How many, Fer- 
nando?” 

“About a thousand,” he answered in a quiet voice, 
rummaging for his bandolier. 

The patio was unusually full of shouting men sad- 
dling horses. I saw Don Petronilo, half dressed, at his 
door, his mistress buckling on his sword. Juan San- 
tillanes was pulling at his trousers with furious haste. 
There was a steady rattle of clicks as cartridges 
slipped into rifles. A score of soldiers ran to and fro 
aimlessly, asking everyone where something was. | 

I don’t think ‘we any of us really believed it. The 
little square of quiet sky over the patio gave promise 
of another hot day. Roosters crowed. A cow that was 
being milked bellowed. I felt hungry. 

‘“‘How near are they?” I asked. 

<“Near.” 

“But the outpost—the guard at the Puerta?” 

“Asleep,” Fernando said, as he strapped on his cart- 
ridge-belt. 

Pablo Arriola clanked in, crippled by his big spurs. 

“‘A little bunch of twelve rode up. Our men thought 
it was only the daily reconnaissance. So after they 


80 
. 


THE COMING OF THE COLORADOS 


drove them back, the Puerta guard sat down to break- 
fast. ‘Then Argumedo himself and hundreds—hun- 
dreds 

“But twenty-five could hold that pass against an 


39 
. 


army until the rest got there. . 

“They’re already past the Puerta,” said Pablo, 
-shouldering his saddle. He went out. 

“The —————_!” swore Juan Santillanes, spinning 
the chambers of his revolver. ‘Wait till I get at them!” 

“Now meester’s going to see some of those shots he 
wanted,” cried Gil Tomas. ‘How about it, meester? 
| Feel scared?” 

Somehow the whole business didn’t seem real. I said 
to myself, “You lucky devil, you’re actually going to 
‘see a fight. That will round out the story.” I loaded 
my camera and hurried out in front of the house. 
| There was nothing much to see there. A blinding 
)sun rose right in the Puerta. Over the leagues and 
leagues of dark desert to the east nothing lived but the 
“morning light. Not a movement. Nota sound. Yet 
‘somewhere out there a mere handful of men were des- 
-_perately trying to hold off an army. 
_ Thin smoke floated up in the breathless air from the 
houses of the peons. It was so still that the grinding 
of tortilla meal between two stones was distinctly audi- 
ble—and the slow, minor song of some woman at her 
work way around the Casa Grande. Sheep were 
maaing to be let out of the corral. On the road to 
‘Santo Domingo, so far away that they were mere col- 
ored accents in the desert, the four peddlers sauntered 
behind their burros. Little knots of peons were 


81 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


gathered in front of the hacienda, pointing and looking 
east. And around the gate of the big enclosure where 


the soldiers were quartered a few troopers held their 


horses by the bridle. That was all. 

Occasionally the door of the Casa Grande vomited 
mounted men—two or three at a time—who galloped 
down the Puerta road with their rifles in their hands. 
I could follow them as they rose and fell over the 
waves of the desert, growing smaller all the time, until 
they mounted the last roll—where the white dust they 
kicked up caught the fierce light of the sun, and the 
eye couldn’t stand it. They had taken my horse, and 
Juan Vallejo didn’t have one. He stood beside me, 
cocking and firing his empty rifle. 

“Look!” he shouted suddenly. ‘The western face of 
the mountains that flanked the Puerta was in shadow 
still. Along their base, to the north and to the south, 
too, wriggled little thin lines of dust. They lengthened 


out—Oh so slowly. At first there was only one in 


each direction; then two others began, farther down, 
nearer, advancing relentlessly, like raveling in a stock- 
ing—like a crack in thin glass. The enemy, spreading 
wide around the battle, to take us in the flank! 


Still the little knots of troopers poured from the — 


Casa Grande, and spurred away. Pablo Arriola went, 
and Nicanor, waving to me brightly as they passed. 
Longinos Giiereca rocketed out on his great tordillo 
horse, yet only half broken. The big gray put down 
his head and buck-jumped four times across the 
square. 

“To-morrow for the mines,” yelled ’Gino over his 


82 


THE COMING OF THE COLORADOS 


shoulder. “I’m very busy to-day—very rich—the lost 
mines of. » But he was too far away for me to 
hear. Martinez followed him, shouting to me with a 
grin that he felt scared to death. Then others. It 
made about thirty so far. I remember that most of 
_them wore automobile goggles. Don Petronilo sat his 
horse, with field-glasses to his eyes. I looked again 
at the lines of dust—they were curving slowly down, 
_the sun glorifying them—like scimitars. 
Don Tomas galloped past, Gil Tomas at his heels. 
| But someone was coming. A little running horse ap- 
peared on the rise, headed our way, the rider outlined 
in a radiant dust. He was going at furious speed, dip- 
_ ping and rising over the rolling land. ... And as he 
spurred wildly up the little hill where we stood, we 
saw a horror. A fan-shaped cascade of blood poured 
| from the front of him. The lower part of his mouth 
was quite shot away by a soft-nosed bullet. He reined 
_up beside the colonel, and tried earnestly, terribly, to 
tell him something; but nothing intelligible issued from 
\the ruin. Tears poured down the poor fellow’s cheeks. 
| He gave a hoarse cry, and, driving his spurs deep in his 
horse, fled up the Santo Domingo road. Others were 
coming, too, on the dead run—those who had been the 
Puerta guard. Two or three passed right through the 
hacienda without stopping. The rest threw themselves 
upon Don Petronilo, in a passion of rage. “More am- 
munition!” they cried. “More cartridges!” 
Don Petronilo looked away. ‘There isn’t any!” 
The men went mad, cursing and hurling their guns on 


the ground. 


83 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“Twenty-five more men at the Puerta,” shouted the 
Colonel. In a few minutes half of the new men gal- 
loped out of their cuartel and took the eastern road. 
The near ends of the dust lines were now lost to view 
behind a swell of ground. 

“Why don’t you send them all, Don Petronilo?” I 
yelled. 

“Because, my young friend, a whole company of 
colorados is riding down that arroyo. You can’t see 
them from there, but I can.” | 

He had no sooner spoken than a rider whirled 
around the corner of the house, pointing back over his 
shoulder to the south, whence he had come. 

“'They’re coming that way, too,” he cried. ‘“Thou- 
sands! Through the other pass! Redondo had only 
five men on guard! ‘They took them prisoner and got 
into the valley before he knew it!” . 

“Valgame Dios!’’ muttered Don Petronilo. 

We turned south. Above the umber rise of desert 
loomed a mighty cloud of white dust, shining in the, 
sun, like the biblical pillar of smoke. 

“The rest of you fellows get out there and hold’ 
them off!” ‘The last twenty-five leaped to their saddles. 
and started southward. | 

Then suddenly the great gate of the walled square 
belched men and horses—men without rifles. The dis- 
armed gente of Salazar! They milled around as if in 
apanic. “Give us our rifles!” they shouted. ‘Where’s 
our ammunition?” ) ) 

“Your rifles are in the cuartel,” answered the Colo- 


84 


[ 


THE COMING OF THE COLORADOS 


nel, “but your cartridges are out there killing colora- 
dos!” 

A great cry went up. “They’ve taken away our 
arms! They want to murder us!” 

“How can we fight, man? What can we do without 


» rifles??? screamed one man in Don Petronilo’s face. 


“Come on, companeros! Let’s go out and strangle 
’em with our hands, the—colorados!” yelled one. 
Five struck spurs into their horses, and sped furiously 


toward the Puerta—without arms, without hope. It 


was magnificent! 
“We'll all get killed!” said another. ‘Come on!” 
And the other forty-five swept wildly out on the road 


| to Santo Domingo. 


The twenty-five recruits that had been ordered to 


‘hold the southern side had ridden out about half a 
mile, and there stopped, seeming uncertain what to do. 
| Now they caught sight of the disarmed fifty galloping 


for the mountains. 
“The companeros are fleeing! The compaferos are 


' fleeing!” 


For a moment there was a sharp exchange of cries. 


“They looked at the dust cloud towering over them. 


They thought of the mighty army of merciless devils 
who made it. They hesitated, broke—and fled furi- 
ously through the chaparral toward the mountains. 

I suddenly discovered that I had been hearing shoot- 


ing for some time. It sounded immensely far away— 


like nothing so much as a clicking typewriter. KEyen 
while it held our attention it grew. The little trivial 
pricking of rifles deepened and became serious. Out in 


85 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


front now it was practically continuous—almost the 
roll of a snare-drum. 
Don Petronilo was a little white. He called Apoli- 
nario and told him to harness the mules to the coach. 
“If anything happens that we get the worst of it,” 
he said lightly to Juan Vallejo, “call my woman and 
you and Reed go with her in the coach. Come on, Fer- 
nando—Juanito!” Silveyra and Juan Santillanes 
spurred out; the three vanished toward the Puerta. 
We could see them now, hundreds of little black fig- 
ures riding everywhere through the chaparral; the 
desert swarmed with them. Savage Indian yells 
reached us. A spent bullet droned overhead, then an- 
other; then one unspent, and then a whole flock sing- 
ing fiercely. 'Thud! went the adobe walls as bits of 
clay flew. Peons and their women rushed from house 
to house, distracted with fear. A trooper, his face 
black with powder and hateful with killing and terror, 
galloped past, shouting that all was lost... . 
Apolinario hurried out the mules with their harness 
on their backs, and began to hitch them to the coach. 
His hands trembled. He dropped a trace, picked it 
up, and dropped it again. He shook all over. All at 


once he threw the harness to the ground and took to | 
his heels. Juan and I rushed forward. Just then a 
stray bullet took the off mule in the rump. Nervous © 


already, the animals plunged wildly. The wagon | 


tongue snapped with the report of a rifle. The mules ~ 


raced madly north into the desert. 


And then came the rout, a wild huddle of troopers j 
all together, lashing their terrified horses. They © 


86 


MEESTER’S FLIGHT 


passed us without stopping, without noticing, all blood 
and sweat and blackness. Don Tomas, Pablo Arriola, 
and after them little Gil Tomas, his horse staggering 
and falling dead right in front of us. Bullets whipped 
the wall on all sides of us. 

“Come on, meester!” said Juan. “Let’s go!” We 
began to run. As I panted up the steep opposite bank 
of the arroyo, I looked back. Gil Tomas was right be- 
hind me, with a red- and black-checked serape round 
his shoulders. Don Petronilo came in sight, shooting 
back over his shoulder, with Juan Santillanes at his 
side. In front raced Fernando Silveyra, bending low 
over his horse’s neck. All around the hacienda was a 
ring of galloping, shooting, yelling men; and as far as 
the eye could reach, on every rise of the desert, came 
more. 


CHAPTER XI 


MEESTER’S FLIGHT 


doggedly with his rifle in one hand. I shouted 

to him to turn off the high road, and he obeyed, 
without looking back. I followed. It was a straight 
path through the desert toward the mountains. The 
desert was as bald as a billiard table here. We could 
‘be seen for miles. My camera got between my legs. 
I dropped it. My overcoat became a terrible weight. 
I shook it off. We could see the compaferos fleeing 
wildly up the Santo Domingo road. Beyond them unex- 


87 


ix VALLEJO was already far ahead, running 
| 


t 
. 
a 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


pectedly appeared a wave of galloping men—the flank- 
ing party from the south. The shooting broke out 
again—and then pursuers and pursued vanished 
around the corner of a little hill. Thank God the path 
was diverging from the road! 

I ran on—ran and ran and ran, until I could run no 
more. Then I walked a few steps and ran again. I 
was sobbing instead of breathing. Awful cramps 
gripped my legs. Here there was more chaparral, 
more brush, and the foothills of the western mountains 
were near. But the entire length of the path was visi- 
ble from behind. Juan Vallejo had reached the foot- 
hills, half a mile ahead. I saw him crawling up a little” 
rise. Suddenly three armed horsemen swept in behind 
him, and raised a shout. He looked around, threw his 
rifle far into the brush, and fled for his life. They shot 
at him, but stopped to recover the rifle. He disap- 
peared over the crest, and then they did, too. , 

I ran. I wondered what time it was. I wasn’t very 
frightened. Everything still was so unreal, like a page ) 
out of Richard Harding Davis. It just seemed to me. 
that if I didn’t get away I wouldn’t be doing my job 
well. I kept thinking to myself: “Well, this is cer- 
tainly an experience. I’m going to have something to 
write about.” f 

Then came yells and hoofs drumming in the rear. 
About a hundred yards behind ran little Gil Tomas, the 
ends of his gay serape flying out straight. And about 
a hundred yards behind him rode two black men with 
crossed bandoliers and rifles in their hands. They shot. 
Gil Tomas raised a ghastly little Indian face to me, 


88 } 


: 
' 
Va 
4 


MEESTER’S FLIGHT 


and ranon. Again they shot. One bullet z-z-z-m-m-d 
by my head. The boy staggered, stopped, wheeled, and 
doubled suddenly into the chaparral. They turned after 
him. I saw the foremost horse’s hoofs strike him. The 
colorados jerked their mounts to their haunches over 
him, shooting down again and again... . 

I ran into the chaparral, topped a little hill, tripped 
on a mesquite root, fell, rolled down a sandy incline, 
and landed in a little arroyo. Dense mesquite covered 
the place. Before I could stir the colorados came 
plunging down the hillside. ‘There he goes!” they 
yelled, and, jumping their horses over the arroyo not 
ten feet from where I lay, galloped off into the desert. 
I suddenly fell asleep. 


I couldn’t have slept very long, for when I woke the 
sun was still in about the same place, and a few scat- 
tered shots could be heard way to the west, in the direc- 
tion of Santo Domingo. I stared up through the brush 
tangle into the hot sky, where one great vulture slowly 
circled over me, wondering whether or not I was dead. 

Not twenty paces away a barefooted Indian with a 
rifle crouched on his motionless horse. He looked up 
at the vulture, and then searched the face of the desert. 
‘I lay still. I couldn’t tell whether he was one of ours 
ornot. After a little time he jogged slowly north over 
‘a hill and disappeared. 

' I waited about half an hour before crawling out of 
the arroyo. In the direction of the hacienda they were 
still shooting—making sure of the dead, I afterward 
learned. I couldn’t see it. The little valley in which I 


89 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


was ran roughly east and west. I traveled westward, 
toward the sierra. But it was still too near the fatal 
path. I stooped low and ran up over the hill, without 
looking back. Beyond was another, higher, and then 
another still. Running over the hills, walking in the 
sheltered valleys, I bore steadily northwest, toward the 
always-nearing mountains. Soon there were no more 
sounds. ‘The sun burned fiercely down, and the long 
ridges of desolate country wavered in the heat. High 
chaparral tore my clothes and face. Underfoot were 
cactuses, century plants, and the murderous espadas, 
whose long, interlaced spikes slashed my boots, drawing 
blood at every step; and beneath them sand and jagged 
stones. It was terrible going. The big still forms of 
Spanish bayonet, astonishingly like men, stood up all 
around the skyline. I stood stiffly for a moment on 
the top of a high hill, in a clump of them, looking back. 


The hacienda was already so far away that it was only 


a white blur in the immeasurable reaches of the desert. 
A thin line of dust moved from it toward the Puerta—_ 


| 


the colorados taking back their dead to Mapimi. 

Then my heart gave a jump. A man was coming 
silently up the valley. He had a green serape over one’ 
arm, and nothing on his head but a blood-clotted hand- 
kerchief. His bare legs were covered with blood from 
the espadas. He caught sight of me all of a sudden, 
and stood still; after a pause he beckoned. I went 
down to where he was; he never said a word, but led 
the way back down the valley. About a hundred yards 
farther he stopped and pointed. A dead horse sprawled | 
in the sand, its stiff legs in the air; beside it lay a man, 


90 


MEESTER’S FLIGHT 


disemboweled by a knife or a sword—evidently a colo- 
rado, because his cartridge-belt was almost full. The 
man with the green serape produced a wicked-looking 
dagger, still ruddy with blood, fell on his knees, and 
began to dig among the espadas. I brought rocks. 
We cut a branch of mesquite and made a cleft cross out 
of it. And so we buried him. 

“Where are you bound, compafero?’’ I asked. 

“For the sierra,” he answered. “And you?” 

I pointed north, where I knew the Giiercas’ ranch 
lay. 

“The Pelayo is over that way—eight leagues.” 

“What is the Pelayo?” 

“Another hacienda. There are some of ours at the 
melayo, I think... .” 

We parted with an “adios.” 

For hours I went on, running over the hilltops, stag- 
gering through the cruel espadas, slipping down the 
steep sides of dried river beds. There was no water. I 
hadn’t eaten or drunk. It was intensely hot. 

About eleven I rounded the shoulder of a mountain 
and saw the small gray patch that was Bruquilla. Here 
passed the Camino Real, and the desert lay flat and 
open. A mile away a tiny horseman jogged along. He 
seemed to see me; he pulled up short and looked in my 
direction a long time. I stood perfectly motionless. 
Pretty soon he went on, getting smaller and smaller, 
until at last there was nothing but a little puff of dust. 
There was no other sign of life for miles and miles. I 


bent low and ran along the side of the road, where 


there was no dust. Half a league westward lay the 
91 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Giierca’s house, hidden in the gigantic row of 
alamo trees that fringed its running brook. A long 
way off I could see a little red spot on the top of the 
low hill beside it; when I came nearer, I saw it was 
father Giiereca, staring toward the east. He came 
running down when he saw me, clenching his hands. 

‘What has passed? What has passed? Is it true 
that the colorados have taken the Cadena?” 

I told him briefly what had happened. 

‘‘And Longinos?” he cried, wrenching at my arm. 
“Have you seen Longinos?” 

“No,” I said. ‘The compafieros all retreated to 
Santo Domingo.” 

“You must not stay here,” said the old man, trem- 
bling. | 

“‘Let me have some water—I can hardly speak.” 

“Yes, yes, drink. There is the brook. The colora- 
dos must not find you here.” The old man looked 
around with anguish at the little rancho he had fought 
so hard to gain. “They would destroy us all.” 

Just then the old mother appeared in the doorway. 

“Come here, Juan Reed,” she cried. ‘‘Where is my | 
boy? Why doesn’t he come? Is he dead? ‘Tell me the 
truth!” 

“Oh, I think they all got away all right,” I told her. 

“And you! Have you eaten? Have you break- 
fasted ?” 

“TY haven’t had a drop of water since last night, nor 
any food. And I came all the way from La Cadena on 
foot.” 

“Poor little boy! Poor little boy!” she wailed, put-_ 


re%e) 
vow 


MEESTER’S FLIG 


ting her arms around me. “Sit down 
cook you something.” 

Old Giiereca bit his lip in an agony ot 
Finally hospitality won. 

“My house is at your orders,” he muttered. “Bb 
hurry! Hurry! You must not be seen here! I will go 
up on the hill and watch for dust 

I drank several quarts of water and ate four fried 
é€ggs and some cheese. The old man had returned and 
was fidgeting around. 

“T sent all my children to Jarral Grande,” he said. _ 
“We heard this morning. The whole valley is fleeing * 


199 


to the mountains. Are you ready?” 

“Stay here,” invited the Sefiora. ‘We will hide you 
from the colorados until Longinos comes home!” 

Her husband screamed at her. “Are you mad? He 
mustn’t be found here! Are you ready now? Come on 
then !”’ 

I limped along down through a burnt, yellow corn- 
field. “Follow this path,” said the old man, “through 
those two fields and the chaparral. It will take you 
to the highroad to the Pelayo. May you go well!” 
We shook hands, and a moment later I saw him shuf- 
fling back up the hill with flapping sandals. 

I crossed an immense valley covered with mesquite 
as high as my head. Twice horsemen passed, probably 
only pacificos, but I took no chances. Beyond that 
valley lay another, about seven miles long. Now there 
were bare mountains all around, and ahead loomed a 
range of fantastic white, pink, and yellow hills. After 
about four hours, with stiff legs and bloody feet, a 


93 


SURGENT MEXICO 


a spinning head, I rounded these and 
t of the alamo trees and low adobe walls 
nda del Pelayo. 

e peons gathered around, listening to my story. 
“Que carrai-i-i-i!” they murmured. “But it is im- 
possible to walk from La Cadena in one day! Pobre- 
cito! You must be tired! Come now and eat. And 
to-night there will be a bed.” | 

“My house is yours,” said Don Felipe, the black- 
smith. ‘‘But are you quite sure the colorados are not 
coming this way? The last time they paid us a visit” (he 
pointed to the blackened walls of the Casa Grande) “they 
killed four pacificos who refused to join them.” He put 
his arm through mine. ‘Come now, amigo, and eat.” 

“If there were only some place to bathe first!” 

At this they smiled and led me behind the hacienda, 
along a little stream overhung with willows, whose 
banks were the most vivid green. The water gushed 
out from under a high wall, and over that wall reared 
the gnarled branches of a giant alamo. We entered a 
little door; there they left me. 

The ground inside sloped sharply up, and the wall—it 
was faded pink—followed the contour of the land. Sunk 
in the middle of the enclosure was a poolofcrystal water. 
The bottom was white sand. At one end of the pool the 
water fountained up from a hole in the bottom. A faint 
steam rose from the surface. It was hot water. 

There was a man already standing up to his neck in 
the water, a man with a circle shaved on the top of 
his head. | 


‘‘Sefior,’ he said, “are you a Catholic?” 
’ Jy 


94 


MEESTER’S FLIGHT 


“No.” 

“Thank God,” he returned briefly. ‘We Catholics 
are liable to be intolerant. Are you a Mexican?” 

“No, sefior.” 

“It is well,” he said, smiling sadly. “I am a priest 
and a Spaniard. I have been made to understand that 
I am not wanted in this beautiful land, sefior. God is 
good. But He is better in Spain than He is in Mex- 
a 
I let myself slowly down into the pellucid, hot depths. 
The pain and the soreness and the weariness fled shud- 
dering up my body. I felt like a disembodied spirit. 
Floating there in the warm embrace of that marvelous 
pool, with the crooked gray branches of the alamo 
above our heads, we discussed philosophy. The fierce 
sky cooled slowly, and the rich sunlight climbed little 
by little up the pink wall. 

Don Felipe insisted that I sleep in his house, in his 
bed. ‘This bed consisted of an iron frame with loose 
wooden slats stretched across it. Over these was laid 
one tattered blanket. My clothing covered me. Don 
Felipe, his wife, his grown son and daughter, his two 
small infants, all of whom had been accustomed to use 
_the bed, lay down upon the soft floor. There were also 
two sick persons in the room—a very old man covered 
with red spots, too far gone to speak, and a boy with 
extraordinarily swollen tonsils. Occasionally a cen- 
tenarian hag entered and ministered unto the patients. 
Her method of treatment was simple. With the old 
man she merely heated a piece of iron at the candle 
and touched the spots. For the boy’s case she made 


95 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


a paste of corn-meal and lard, and gently rubbed his 
elbows with it, loudly saying prayers. This went on at 
intervals all night. Between treatments the babies 
would wake up at intervals and insist upon being 
nursed. . . . The door was shut early in the evening, 
and windows there were none. 

Now all this hospitality meant a real sacrifice to 
Don Felipe, especially the meals, at which he unlocked | 
a tin trunk and brought me with all reverence his pre- 
cious sugar and coffee. He was, like all peons, incredi- 
bly poor and lavishly hospitable. The giving up of his 
bed was a mark of the highest honor, too. But when I 
tried to pay him in the morning he wouldn’t hear of it. 

“My house is yours,” he repeated. “‘A stranger 
might be God,’ as we say.” 

Finally I told him that I wanted him to buy me 
some tobacco, and he took the money. I knew then 
that it would go to the right place, for a Mexican can 
be trusted never to carry out a commission. He is de- 
lightfully irresponsible. 

At six o’clock in the morning I set out for Santo 
Domingo in a two-wheeled cart driven by an old peon 
named Froilan Mendarez. We avoided the main road, 
jolting along by a mere track that led behind a range 
of hills. After we’d traveled for about an hour, I had 
an unpleasant thought. 

“What if the compaieros fled beyond Santo Do- 
mingo and the colorados are there?” 

‘What indeed?” murmured Froilan, chirruping to 
the mule. 

“But if they are, what'll we do?” 


96 


MEESTER’S FLIGHT 


Froilan thought a minute. “We might say we were 
cousins to President Huerta,” he suggested, without a 
smile. Froilan was a barefooted peon, his face and 
hands incredibly damaged by age and dirt; I was a 
ragged Gringo... . 

We jogged on for several hours. At one place an 
armed man started out of the brush and hailed us. 
His lips were split and leathery with thirst. The 
espadas had slashed his legs terribly. He had escaped 
over the Sierra, climbing and slipping all night. We 
gave him all the water and food we had, and he went on 
toward the Pelayo. 

Long after noon our cart topped the last desert rise, 
and we saw sleeping below us the long spread-out ha- 
cienda of Santo Domingo, with its clump of tall alamos 
like palm trees around the oasis-like spring. My heart 
was in my mouth as we drove down. In the big ribota 
court the peons were playing hand ball. Up from the 
spring moved the long line of water carriers. A fire 
sent up thin smoke among the trees. 

_ We came upon an aged peon carrying fagots. “No,” 
he said, ‘there had been no colorados. The Maderis- 


tas? Yes, they had come last night—hundreds of 


them, all running. But at dawn they had gone back to 


La Cadena to ‘lift the fields’ (bury the dead).” 


From around the fire under the alamos came a great 


shout: ‘The meester! Here comes the meester! Que 


} 


tal, compaiero? How did you escape?” It was my 
old friends, the peddlers. They crowded around 


eagerly, questioning, shaking my hand, throwing their 


arms around me. 


97 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“Ah, but that was close! Carramba, but I was 
lucky! Did I know that Longinos Giiereca was killed? 
Yes, but he shot six colorados before they got him. 
And Martinez also, and Nicanor, and Redondo.” 

I felt sick. Sick to think of so many useless deaths — 
in such a petty fight. Blithe, beautiful Martinez; 
°Gino Giiereca, whom I had learned to love so much; 
Redondo, whose girl was even then on her way to Chi- 
huahua to buy her wedding dress; and jolly Nicanor. 
It seems that when Redondo found that his flank had 
been turned his troop deserted him; so he galloped 
alone toward La Cadena, and was caught by three hun-_ 
dred colorados. They literally shot him to pieces. 
"Gino, and Luis Martinez, and Nicanor, with five 
others, held the eastward side of the hacienda unaided 
until their cartridges were gone, and they were sur- 
rounded by a ring of shooting men. Then they died. 
The colorados carried off the Colonel’s woman. 

“But there’s a man who’s been through it all,” said 
one of the peddlers. ‘He fought till his last cartridge 
was gone, and then cut his way through the enemy with 
a saber.” 

I looked around. Surrounded by a ring of gaping 
peons, his lifted arm illustrating the great deed, was. 
—Apolinario! He caught sight of me, nodded coldly, 
as to one who has run from the fight, and went on with 
his recital. 


All through the long afternoon Froilan and I played 
ribota with the peons. It was a drowsy, peaceful day. 
A gentle wind rustled the high branches of the great 


98 J 


>. 


j 


ELIZABETTA 


trees, and the late sun, from behind the hill that is 
back of Santo Domingo, warmed with color their lofty 
tops. 

It was a strange sunset. The sky became overcast 
with light cloud toward the end of the afternoon. First 
it turned pink, then scarlet, then of a sudden the whole 
firmament became a deep, bloody red. 

An immense drunken man—an Indian about seven 
feet tall—staggered out in the open ground near the 
ribota court with a violin in his hand. He tucked it 
under his chin and sawed raggedly on the strings, stag- 
gering to and fro as he played. Then a little one- 
armed dwarf sprang out of the crowd of peons and be- 
gan to dance. A dense throng made a circle around 

_ the two, roaring with mirth. 
And just at that moment there appeared against the 
bloody sky, over the eastern hill, the broken, defeated 
men—on horseback and on foot, wounded and whole, 
weary, sick, disheartened, reeling and lmping down 
_to Santo Domingo... . 


CHAPTER XII 


ELIZABETTA 


O, against a crimson sky, the beaten, exhausted 
soldiers came down the hill. Some rode, their 
horses hanging weary heads—occasionally two 

on a horse. Others walked, with bloody bandages 
around their foreheads and arms. Cartridge-belts 


99 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


were empty, rifles gone. Their hands and faces were 


foul with sweaty dirt and stained still with powder, | 


Beyond the hill, across the twenty-mile arid waste that 


lay between us and La Cadena, they straggled. There 


were not more than fifty left, including the women—the 


rest had dispersed in the barren mountains and the 


folds of the desert—but they stretched out for miles; 


it took hours for them to arrive. 


Don Petronilo came in front, with lowered face and | 


folded arms, the reins hanging loose upon the neck of 


his swaying, stumbling horse. Right behind him came _ 


Juan Santillanes, gaunt and white, his face years 


older. Fernando Silveyra, all rags, dragged along at 


his saddle. As they waded the shallow stream they 
looked up and saw me. Don Petronilo weakly waved 
his hand; Fernando shouted, ‘Why, there’s meester! 
How did you escape? We thought sure they had shot 
you.” 

“T ran a race with the goats,” I answered. Juan 
gave a laugh. “Scared to death, eh?” 

The horses thrust eager muzzles into the stream, 


sucking fiercely. Juan cruelly spurred across, and we 


fell into each other’s arms. But Don Petronilo dis- 


mounted in the water, dully, as if in a dream, and, 
wading up to the tops of his boots, came to where I 
was. 


He was weeping. His expression didn’t change, but 


slow, big tears fell silently down his cheeks. 


? murmured Juan 


“The colorados captured his wife 
in my ear. 
I was filled with pity for the man. 


100 


ELIZABETTA 


“Tt is a terrible thing, mi Coronel,” I said gently, 
“to feel the responsibility for all these brave fellows 
who died. But it was not your fault.” 

“Tt is not that,” he replied slowly, staring through 
tears at the pitiful company crawling down from the 
desert. 

— “T, too, had many friends who died in the battle,” 
I went on. “But they died gloriously, fighting for 
their country.” 

— “T do not weep for them,” he said, twisting his hands 
‘together. “This day I have lost all that is dear to me. 
‘They took my woman who was mine, and my commis- 
‘sion and all my papers, and all my money. But I am 
wrenched with grief when I think of my silver spurs 
inlaid with gold, which I bought only last year in 
Mapimi!” He turned away, overcome. 

And now the peons began to come down from their 
houses, with pitying cries and loving offers. They 
‘threw their arms around the soldiers’ necks, assisting 
the wounded, patting them shyly on the shoulders and 
ealling them “brave.” Desperately poor themselves, 
‘they offered food, and beds, and fodder for the horses, 
‘inviting them to stay at Santo Domingo until they 
‘should become well. I already had a place to sleep. 
Don Pedro, the chief goatherd, had given me his room 


and his bed in a gush of warm-hearted generosity, and 
had removed himself and his family to the kitchen. He 
did so without hope of recompense, for he thought I 
had no money. And now everywhere men, women and 
children left their houses to make way for the de- 
feated and weary troops. 


101 


INSURGENT MEXICO ; 


Fernando, Juan and I went over and begged some 
tobacco from the four peddlers camped under the trees 
beside the spring. They had made no sales for a week, 
and were almost starving, but they loaded us lavishly 
with macuche. We talked of the battle, lying there on 
our elbows watching the shattered remnants of the 
garrison top the hill. 

“You have heard that ’Gino Giiereca fell,” said Fer 
nando. “Well, I saw him. His big gray horse that he 
rode for the first time was terrified by the bridle and 
saddle. But once he came where the bullets were flying — 
and the guns roaring, he steadied at once. Pure race, 
that horse. . . . His fathers must have been all war- 
riors. Around ’Gino were four or five more heroes, 
with almost all their cartridges gone. They fought 


i 
until on the front and on both sides double galloping © 


lines of colorados closed in. ’Gino was standing beside 
his horse—suddenly a score of shots hit the animal all 
at once, and he sighed and fell over. The rest ceased 
firing in a sort of panic. ‘We’re lost!’ they cried. 
‘Run while there is yet a chance!’ ’Gino shook his 
smoking rifle at them. ‘No,’ he shouted. ‘Give the 
compaferos time to get away! Shortly after that 
they closed around him, and I never saw him until we 
buried his body this morning. . . . It was the devil’s” 
hell out there. The rifles were so hot you couldn’t 
touch the barrels, and the whirling haze that belched 
out when they shot twisted everything like a mir- 
ty Se he 

Juan broke in. “We rode straight out toward the 


Puerta when the retreat began, but almost immediately 
102 


ELIZABETTA 


we saw it was no use. The colorados broke over our 
little handfuls of men like waves of the sea. Martinez 
was just ahead. He never had a chance even to fire his 
gun—and this was his first battle, too. They hit him 
as he rode. ...I thought how you and Martinez 
loved each other. You used to talk together at night 
so warmly, and never wished to leave each other’ to 
meep.....” 

Now the tall, naked tops of the trees had dulled with 
the passing of the light, and seemed to stand still 
among the swarming stars in the deep dome overhead. 
The peddlers had kindled their tiny fire; the low, con- 
tented murmur of their gossip floated to us. Open 
doors of the peons’ huts shed wavering candlelight. 
Up from the river wound a silent line of black-robed 
girls with water-jars on their heads. Women ground 
their corn-meal with a monotonous stony scraping. 
Dogs barked. Drumming hoofs marked the passing of 
the caballada to the river. Along the ledge in front of 
Don Pedro’s house the warriors smoked and fought the 
battle over again, stamping around and _ shouting 
descriptive matter. “I took my rifle by the barrel 
*? some 


and smashed in his grinning face, just as 
one was narrating, with gestures. The peons squatted 
around, breathlessly listening. ... And still the 
ghastly procession of the defeated straggled down the 
road and across the river. 

It was not yet quite dark. I wandered down to the 
bank to watch them, in the vague hope of finding some 
of my compadres who were still reported missing. And 
it was there that I first saw Elizabetta. 


103 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


There was nothing remarkakle about her. I think I 
noticed her chiefly because she was one of the few 
women in that wretched company. She was a very 
dark-skinned Indian girl, about twenty-five years old, 
with the squat figure of her drudging race, pleasant 
features, hair hanging forward over her shoulders in 
two long plaits, and big, shining teeth when she smiled. 
I never did find out whether she had been just a peon 
woman working around La Cadena when the attack had 
come, or whether she was a vieja—a camp follower of 
the army. 

Now she was trudging stolidly along in the dust be- 
hind Captain Felix Romero’s horse—and had trudged 
so for thirty miles. He never spoke to her, never 
looked back, but rode on unconcernedly. Sometimes 
he would get tired of carrying his rifle and hand it 
back to her to carry, with a careless “Here! Take 
this!” I found out later that when they returned to 
La Cadena after the battle to bury the dead he had 


found her wandering aimlessly in the hacienda, ap- 


. parently out of her mind; and that, needing a woman, 


he had ordered her to follow him. Which she did, un- 

questioningly, after the custom of her sex and country. 
Captain Felix let his horse drink. Elhzabetta halted, 
too, knelt and plunged her face into the water. | 
“Come on,” ordered the Captain. “Andale! She 
rose without a word and waded through the stream. — 
In the same order they climbed the near bank, and 
there the Captain dismounted, held out his hand for the 
rifle she carried, and said, ““Get me my supper!” Then” 
104 %. 


ELIZABETTA 


he strolled away toward the houses where the rest of 
the soldiers sat. 

Elizabetta fell upon her knees and gathered twigs 
for her fire. Soon there was a little pile burning. She 
called a small boy in the harsh, whining voice that all 
Mexican women have, “‘Aie! chamaco! Fetch me a lit- 
tle water and corn that I may feed my man!” And, 
rising upon her knees above the red glow of the flames, 
she shook down her long, straight black hair. She 
wore a sort of blouse of faded light blue rough cloth. 
There was dried blood on the breast of it. 

“What a battle, sefiorita!’’ I said to her. 

Her teeth flashed as she smiled, and yet there was a 
‘puzzling vacancy about her expression. Indians have 
mask-like faces. Under it I could see that she was 
desperately tired and even a little hysterical. But she 
spoke tranquilly enough. 

“Perfectly,” she said. ‘Are you the Gringo who ran 
so many miles with the colorados after you shooting?” 
And she laughed—catching her breath in the middle of 
‘it as if it hurt. 

_ The chamaco shambled up with an earthen jar of 
water and an armful of corn-ears that he tumbled at 
her feet. Elizabetta unwound from her shawl the 
heavy little stone trough that Mexican women carry, 
and began mechanically husking the corn into it. 

“Y do not remember seeing you at La Cadena,” I 
said. “Were you there long?” 

“Too long,” she answered simply, without raising 
her head. And then suddenly, “Oh, but this war is no 
game for women!” she cried. 


105 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Don Felix loomed up out of the dark, with a ciga- 
rette in his mouth. 

“My dinner,” he growled. “Is it pronto?” 

“Tuego, luego!” she answered. He went away again. 

“Listen, sefior, whoever you are!” said Elizabetta 
swiftly, looking up to me. “My lover was killed yes- 
terday in the battle. ‘This man is my man, but, by 


tes 


God and all the Saints, I can’t sleep with him this — 


night. Let me stay then with you!” 

There wasn’t a trace of coquetry in her voice. This. 
blundering, childish spirit had found itself in a situa- 
tion it couldn’t bear, and had chosen the instinctive 
way out. I doubt if she even knew herself why the 


thought of this new man so revolted her, with her lover 


scarcely cold in the ground. I was nothing to her, nor 
she to me. That was all that mattered. 
I assented, and together we left the fire, the Cap- 


tain’s neglected corn spilling from the stone trough. : 


And then we met him a few feet into the darkness. 


“My dinner!” he said impatiently. His voice | 


changed. ‘Where are you going?” 


“I'm going with this sefior,” Elizabetta answered 


nervously. “I’m going to stay with him 
“You 


my woman. Oiga, sefior, this is my woman here!” 


“Yes,” I said. “She is your woman. I have noth- _ 
ing to do with her. But she is very tired and not well, 


and I have offered her my bed for the night.” 


“This is very bad, sefior!’ exclaimed the Captain, — 
in a tightening voice. “You are the guest of this 


106 


* began Don Felix, gulping. “You are. 


ELIZABETTA 


Tropa and the Colonel’s friend, but this is my woman 
and I want her 4g 

“Oh!” Elizabetta cried out. “Until the next time, 
sefior!” She caught my arm and pulled me on. 

We had been living in a nightmare of battle and 
death—all of us. I think everybody was a little dazed 
and excited. I know I was. 

By this time the peons and soldiers had begun to 
gather around us, and as we went on the Captain’s 
voice rose as he retailed his injustice to the crowd. 

“T shall appeal to the Colonel,” he was saying. “I 
shall tell the Colonel!’ He passed us, going toward 
the Colonel’s cuartel, with averted, mumbling face. 

“Oiga, mi Coronel!’ he cried. “This Gringo has 
taken away my woman. It is the grossest insult!’ 

“Well,” returned the Colonel calmly, “if they both 
want to go, I guess there isn’t anything we can do 
about it, eh?” 

The news had traveled like light. <A throng of small 
boys followed us close behind, shouting the joyful in- 
delicacies they shout behind rustic wedding parties. 
We passed the ledge where the soldiers and the wounded 
sat, grinning and making rough, genial remarks as at a 
marriage. It was not coarse or suggestive, their ban- 
ter; it was frank and happy. They were honestly glad 
for us. 

As we approached Don Pedro’s house we were aware 
of many candles within. He and his wife and daugh- 
ter were busy with brooms, sweeping and resweeping 
_ the earthen floor, and sprinkling it with water. They 
had put new linen on the bed, and lit the rush candle 


107 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


before the table altar of the Virgin. Over the doorway 
hung a festoon of paper blossoms, faded relics of many 
a Christmas Eve celebration—for it was winter, and 
there were no real flowers. 


Don Pedro was radiant with smiles. It made no dif- — 


ference who we were, or what our relation was. Here 
were a man and a maid, and to him it was a bridal. 

“May you have a happy night,” he said softly, and 
closed the door. The frugal Elizabetta immediately 
made the rounds of the room, extinguishing all the 
candles but one. 

And then, outside, we heard music beginning to tune 
up. Some one had hired the village orchestra to sere- 
nade us. Late into the night they played steadily, 


right outside our door. In the next house we heard © 


them moving chairs and tables out of the way; and just 


before I went to sleep they began to dance there, eco- — 


nomically combining a serenade with a baile. 


Without the least embarrassment, Elizabetta lay : 
down beside me on the bed. Her hand reached for — 
mine. She snuggled against my body for the comfort- — 


ing human warmth of it, murmured, “Until morning,” 


and went to sleep. And calmly, sweetly, sleep came to — 


me. 


my door and looked out. Morning had come daz- 


zlingly, all blue and gold—a heaven of flame-trimmed — 
big white clouds and windy sky, and the desert brazen 
and luminous. Under the ashy bare trees the ped- 
dlers’ morning fire leaped horizontal in the wind. The — 
black women, with wind-folded draperies, crossed the 


108 


When I woke in the morning she was gone. I opened — 


<4 F ‘. 


ELIZABETTA 


open ground to the river in single file, with red water- 
jars on their heads. Cocks crew, goats clamored for 
milking, and a hundred horses drummed up the dust as 
they were driven to water. 

Elizabetta was squatted over a little fire near the 
corner of the house, patting tortillas for the Captain’s 
breakfast. She smiled as I came up, and politely asked 
me if I had slept well. She was quite contented now; 
you knew from the way she sang over her work. 

Presently the Captain came up in a surly manner 
and nodded briefly to me. 

“T hope it’s ready now,” he grunted, taking the tor- 
tillas she gave him. “You take a long time to cook a 
little breakfast. Carramba! Why is there no coffee?” 
He moved off, munching. “Get ready,” he flung back 
over his shoulder. ‘We go north in an hour.” 

“Are you going?” I asked curiously. Elizabetta 
looked at me with wide-open eyes. 

“Of course I am going. Seguro! Is he not my 
man?” She looked after him admiringly. She was no 
longer revolted. 

“He is my man,” she said. “He is very handsome, 
and very brave. Why, in the battle the other day v 

Elizabetta had forgotten her lover. 


PART TWO y 
FRANCISCO VILLA’ | 


AY vey 


Bt Ks i AV ap ayY a 
peg, et Oe are, Wits La ae 


CHAPTER I 


VILLA ACCEPTS A MEDAL 


T was while Villa was in Chihuahua City, two 
weeks before the advance on Torreon, that the 
artillery corps of his army decided to present 

him with a gold medal for personal heroism on the field. 

In the audience hall of the Governor’s palace in Chi- 
huahua, a place of ceremonial, great luster chandeliers, 
heavy crimson portiéres, and gaudy American wallpa- 


_ per, there is a throne for the governor. It is a gilded 


chair, with lion’s claws for arms, placed upon a dais 
under a canopy of crimson velvet, surmounted by a 
heavy, gilded, wooden cap, which tapers up to a crown. 

The officers of artillery, in smart blue uniforms faced 


| with black velvet and gold, were solidly banked across 


one end of the audience hall, with flashing new swords 
and their gilt-braided hats stiffly held under their arms. 
From the door of that chamber, around the gallery, 
down the state staircase, across the grandiose inner 
court of the palace, and out through the imposing 
gates to the street, stood a double line of sol- 
diers, with their rifles at present arms. Four regi- 


_ mental bands grouped in one wedged in the crowd. The 
| people of the capital were massed in solid thousands on 
_ the Plaza de Armas before the palace. 


113 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“Ya viene!’ “Here he comes!” “Viva Villa!” “Viva 
Madero!” ‘Villa, the Friend of the Poor!”’ 

The roar began at the back of the crowd and swept 
like fire in heavy growing crescendo until it seemed to 
toss thousands of hats above their heads. The band in 
the courtyard struck up the Mexican national air, 
and Villa came walking down the street. 

He was dressed in an old plain khaki uniform, with 
several buttons lacking. He hadn’t recently shaved, 
wore no hat, and his hair had not been brushed. He 
walked a little pigeon-toed, humped over, with his hands 
in his trousers pockets. As he entered the aisle be- 
tween the rigid lines of soldiers he seemed slightly em- 
barrassed, and grinned and nodded to a compadre here 
and there in the ranks. At the foot of the grand stair- 
case, Governor Chao and Secretary of State Terrazzas 
joined him in full-dress uniform. The band threw off 
all restraint, and, as Villa entered the audience cham- 
ber, at a signal from someone in the balcony of the 
palace, the great throng in the Plaza de Armas uncov- 
ered, and all the brilliant crowd of officers in the room 
saluted stiffly. 

It was Napoleonic! 

Villa hesitated for a minute, pulling his mustache 
and looking very uncomfortable, finally gravitated to- 
ward the throne, which he tested by shaking the arms, 
and then sat down, with the Governor on his right and 
the Secretary of State on his left. 

Sefior Bauche Alcalde stepped forward, raised his 
right hand to the exact position which Cicero took 
when denouncing Catiline, and pronounced a short dis- 


114 


or 


VILLA ACCEPTS A MEDAL 


course, indicting Villa for personal bravery on the field 
on six counts, which he mentioned in florid detail. He 
was followed by the Chief of Artillery, who said: “The 
army adores you. We will follow you wherever you 
lead. You can be what you desire in Mexico.” Then 
three other officers spoke in the high-flung, extrava- 
gant periods necessary to Mexican oratory. They 
called him “The Friend of the Poor,” ‘“The Invincible 
General,” **The Inspirer of Courage and Patriotism,” 
“The Hope of the Indian Republic.” And through it 
all Villa slouched on the throne, his mouth hanging 
open, his little shrewd eyes playing around the room. 
Gn-e or twice he yawned, but for the most part he 
seerzned to be speculating, with some intense interior 
amusement, like a small boy in church, what it was all 
about. He knew, of course, that it was the proper 
thing, and perhaps felt a slight vanity that all this 
conventional ceremonial was addressed to him. But it 
bored him just the same. 

Finally, with an impressive gesture, Colonel Servin 
stepped forward with the small pasteboard box which 
held the medal. General Chao nudged Villa, who stood 
up. The officers applauded violently; the crowd out- 
side cheered; the band in the court burst into a tri- 
umphant march. 

Villa put out both hands eagerly, like a child for a 
new toy. He could hardly wait to open the box and 
see what was inside. An expectant hush fell upon every- 
one, even the crowd in the square. Villa looked at the 
medal, scratching his head, and, in a reverent silence, 


said clearly: “This is a hell of a little thing to give 
115 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


a man for all that heroism you are talking about!” 
And the bubble of Empire was pricked then and there 
with a great shout of laughter. 

They waited for him to speak—to make a conven- 
tional address of acceptance. But as he looked around 
the room at those brilliant, educated men, who said 
that they would die for Villa, the peon, and meant it, 
and as he caught sight through the door of the ragged 
soldiers, who had forgotten their rigidity and were 
crowding eagerly into the corridor with eyes fixed 
eagerly on the companero that they loved, he realized 
something of what the Revolution signified. 

Puckering up his face, as he did always when he con- 
centrated intensely, he leaned across the table in front 
of him and poured out, in a voice so low that people 
could hardly hear: ‘There is no word to speak. All I 
can say is my heart is all to you.”” Then he nudged 
Chao and sat down, spitting violently on the floor; and 
Chao pronounced the classic discourse. 


CHAPTER II 


THE RISE OF A BANDIT 


ILLA was an outlaw for twenty-two years. 
When he was only a boy of sixteen, delivering 

milk in the streets of Chihuahua, he killed a 
government official and had to take to the mountains. 
The story is that the official had violated his sister, 
but it seems probable that Villa killed him on account — 


116 


| 


THE RISE OF A BANDIT 


of his insufferable insolence. That in itself would not 


have outlawed him long in Mexico, where human life 
is cheap; but once a refugee he committed the unpar- 


donable crime of stealing cattle from the rich hacenda- 
dos. And from that time to the outbreak of the Ma- 
dero revolution the Mexican government had a price 
on his head. 

Villa was the son of ignorant peons. He had never 
been to school. He hadn’t the slightest conception of 
the complexity of civilization, and when he finally 
came back to it, a mature man of extraordinary native 
shrewdness, he encountered the twentieth century with 
the naive simplicity of a savage. 

It is almost impossible to procure accurate informa- 
tion about his career as a bandit. There are accounts 
of outrages he committed in old files of local newspa- 
pers and government reports, but those sources are 
prejudiced, and his name became so prominent as a 
bandit that every train robbery and hold-up and mur- 
der in northern Mexico was attributed to Villa. But 
an immense body of popular legend grew up among the 
peons around his name. ‘There are many traditional 
songs and ballads celebrating his exploits—you can 
hear the shepherds singing them around their fires in 
the mountains at night, repeating verses handed down 
by their fathers or composing others extemporane- 
ously. For instance, they tell the story of how Villa, 
fired by the story of the misery of the peons on the 
Hacienda of Los Alamos, gathered a small army and 
descended upon the Big House, which he looted, and 
distributed the spoils among the poor people. He 


117 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


drove off thousands of cattle from the Terrazzas range 
and ran them across the border. He would suddenly 
descend upon a prosperous mine and seize the bullion. 
When he needed corn he captured a granary belonging 
to some rich man. He recruited almost openly in the 
villages far removed from the well-traveled roads and 
railways, organizing the outlaws of the mountains, 
Many of the present rebel soldiers used to belong to 
his band and several of the Constitutionalist generals, 
like Urbina. His range was confined mostly to southern 
Chihuahua and northern Durango, but it extended 
from Coahuila right across the Republic to the State 
of Sinaloa. 

His reckless and romantic bravery is the subject of 
countless poems. They tell, for example, how one of 
his band named Reza was captured by the rurales and 
bribed to betray Villa. Villa heard of it and sent word 
into the city of Chihuahua that he was coming for 
Reza. In broad daylight he entered the city on horse- 
back, took ice cream on the Plaza—the ballad is very 
explicit on this point—and rode up and down the 
streets until he found Reza strolling with his sweet- 
heart in the Sunday crowd on the Paseo Bolivar, where 
he shot him and escaped. In time of famine he fed 
whole districts, and took care of entire villages evicted 
by the soldiers under Porfirio Diaz’s outrageous land 
law. Everywhere he was known as The Friend of the 
Poor. He was the Mexican Robin Hood. : 

In all these years he learned to trust nobody. Often 
in his secret journeys across the country with one 
faithful companion he camped in some desolate spot 


118 


THE RISE OF A BANDIT 


and dismissed his guide; then, leaving a fire burning, 
he rode all night to get away from the faithful com- 
panion. That is how Villa learned the art of war, and 
in the field to-day, when the army comes into camp at 
night, Villa flings the bridle of his horse to an orderly, 
takes a serape over his shoulder, and sets out for the 
hills alone. He never seems to sleep. In the dead of 
night he will appear somewhere along the line of out-, 
posts to see if the sentries are on the job; and in the 
morning he returns from a totally different direction. 
No one, not even the most trusted officer of his staff, 
knows the least of his plans until he is ready for action. 


When Madero took the field in 1910, Villa was still 
an outlaw. Perhaps, as his enemies say, he saw a 
chance to whitewash himself; perhaps, as seems proba- 
ble, he was inspired by the Revolution of the peons. 
Anyway, about three months after they rose in arms, 
Villa suddenly appeared in El Paso and put himself, 
his band, his knowledge of the country and all his for- 
tune at the command of Madero. The vast wealth that 
people said he must have accumulated during his 
twenty years of robbery turned out to be 363 silver 
pesos, badly worn. Villa became a Captain in the Ma- 
derista army, and as such went to Mexico City with 
Madero and was made honorary general of the new 
‘rurales. He was attached to Huerta’s army when it 
was sent north to put down the Orozco Revolution. 
Villa commanded the garrison of Parral, and defeated 
Orozco with an inferior force in the only decisive bat- 
tle of the war. 

119 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Huerta put Villa in command of the advance, and let 


him and the veterans of Madero’s army do the danger- 
ous and dirty work while the old line Federal regiments 
lay back under the protection of their artillery. In 
Jimenez Huerta suddenly summoned Villa before a 
court-martial and charged him with insubordination— 
claiming to have wired an order to Villa in Parral, 
which order Villa said he never received. The court- 
martial lasted fifteen minutes, and Huerta’s most pow- 
erful future antagonist was sentenced to be shot. 
Alfonso Madero, who was on Huerta’s staff, stayed 
the execution, but President Madero, forced to back 
up the orders of his commander in the field, imprisoned 
Villa in the Penitentiary of the capital. During all 


this time Villa never wavered in his loyalty to Madero ~ 
—an unheard-of thing in Mexican history. For a long © 


time he had passionately wanted an education. Now he 


wasted no time in regrets or political intrigue. He set 
himself with all his force to learn to read and write. — 
Villa hadn’t the slightest foundation to work upon. He — 


spoke the crude Spanish of the very poor—what is 


called pelado. He knew nothing of the rudiments or — 
philosophy of language; and he started out to learn 
those first, because he always must know the why of — 


things. In nine months he could write a very fair 
hand and read the newspapers. It is interesting now 
to see him read, or, rather, hear him, for he has to 
drone the words aloud like a small child. Finally, the 
Madero government connived at his escape from 


prison, either to save Huerta’s face because Villa’s © 


friends had demanded an investigation, or because Ma- 
120 


THE RISE OF A BANDIT 


dero was convinced of his innocence and didn’t dare 
openly to release him. 


From that time to the outbreak of the last revolu- 
tion, Villa lived in El Paso, Texas, and it was from 
there that he set out, in April, 1913, to conquer Mex- 
ico with four companions, three led horses, two pounds 
of sugar and coffee, and a pound of salt. 

There is a little story connected with that. He 
hadn’t money enough to buy horses, nor had any of 
his companions. But he sent two of them to a local 
livery stable to rent riding horses every day for a week. 
They always paid carefully at the end of the ride, so 
when they asked for eight horses the livery stable man 
had no hesitation about trusting them with them. Six 
months later, when Villa came triumphantly into 
Juarez at the head of an army of four thousand men, 
the first public act he committed was to send a man 
with double the price of the horses to the owner of the 
livery stable. 

He recruited in the mountains near San Andres, and 
so great was his popularity that within one month he 

‘had raised an army of three thousand men; in two 
‘months he had driven the Federal garrisons all over the 
State of Chihuahua back into Chihuahua City; in six 


‘months he had taken Torreon; and in seven and a half ~ 


Juarez had fallen to him, Mercado’s Federal army had 
evacuated Chihuahua, and Northern Mexico was al- 
most free. 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


ig. 


CHAPTER III 


A PEON IN POLITICS 


ILLA proclaimed himself military governor of 
the State of Chihuahua, and began the ex- 
traordinary experiment—extraordinary _ be- 

cause he knew nothing about it—of creating a govern- 
ment for 300,000 people out of his head. : 
It has often been said that Villa succeeded because 
he had educated advisers. As a matter of fact, he was i 
almost alone. What advisers he had spent most of 
their time answering his eager questions and doing 
what he told them. I used sometimes to go to the Gov- 
ernor’s palace early in the morning and wait for him 
in the Governor’s chamber. About eight o’clock Syl 
vestre Terrazzas, the Secretary of State, Sebastian 
Vargas, the State Treasurer, and Manuel Chao, then 
Interventor, would arrive, very bustling and busy, with 
huge piles of reports, suggestions and decrees which 
they had drawn up. Villa himself came in about eight- 
thirty, threw himself into a chair, and made them read i 
out loud to him. Every minute he would interject a 
remark, correction or suggestion. Occasionally he 
waved his finger back and forward and said: “No 
sirve.”” When they were all through he began rapidly 
and without a halt to outline the policy of the State of 
Chihuahua, legislative, financial, judicial, and even edu- 
cational. When he came to a place that bothered him, — 
he said: “How do they do that?” And then, after 
122 fee 


A PEON IN POLITICS 


it was carefully explained to him: “Why?” Most of 
the acts and usages of government seemed to him ex- 
traordinarily unnecessary and snarled up. For exam- 
ple, his advisers proposed to finance the Revolution 
by issuing State bonds bearing 30 or 40 per cent. in- 
terest. He said, “I can understand why the State 
should pay something to people for the rent of their 
money, but how is it just to pay the whole sum back 
to them three or four times over?’? He couldn’t see 
why rich men should be granted huge tracts of land 
and poor men should not. The whole complex struc- 
ture of civilization was new to him. You had to be a 
philosopher to explain anything to Villa; and his ad- 
visers were only practical men. 


There was the financial question. It came to Villa in 
this way. He noticed, all of a sudden, that there was 
no money in circulation. The farmers who produced 
meat and vegetables refused to come into the city mar- 
kets any more because no one had any money to buy 
from them. The truth was that those possessing sil- 
'ver or Mexican bank-notes buried them in the ground. 
‘Chihuahua not being a manufacturing center, and the 
'few factories there having closed down, there was noth- 
‘ing which could be exchanged for food. So, like a 
blight, the paralysis of the production of food began 
all at once and actual starvation stared at the town 
‘populations. I remember hearing vaguely of several 
highly elaborate plans for the relief of this condition 
put forward by Villa’s advisers. He himself said: 
“Why, if all they need is money, let’s print some.” So 

123 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


they inked up the printing press in the basement of 
the Governor’s palace and ran off two million pesos 
on strong paper, stamped with the signatures of gov- 
ernment officials, and with Villa’s name printed across 
the middle in large letters. 'The counterfeit money, 
which afterward flooded El] Paso, was distinguished 
from the original by the fact that the names of the 
officials were signed instead of stamped. 

This first issue of currency was guaranteed by abso- 
lutely nothing but the name of Francisco Villa. It was 
issued chiefly to revive the petty internal commerce of 
the State so that the poor people could get food. And 
yet almost immediately it was bought by the banks of 
El Paso at 18 to 19 cents on the dollar because Villa 
guaranteed it. 


Of course he knew nothing of the accepted ways of 


getting his money into circulation. He began to pay 
the army with it. On Christmas Day he called 


the poor people of Chihuahua together and gave them | 
$15 apiece outright. Then he issued a short decree, © 
ordering the acceptance of his money at par through- 
out the State. The succeeding Saturday the market- 
places of Chihuahua and the other nearby towns — 
swarmed with farmers and with buyers. Villa issued 


another proclamation, fixing the price of beef at seven 


cents a pound, milk at five cents a quart, and bread at_ 
four cents a loaf. There was no famine in Chihuahua. - 
But the big merchants, who had timidly reopened their 


stores for the first time since his entry into Chihuahua, — 


placarded their goods with two sets of price marks—_ 


one for Mexican silver money and bank-bills, and the 
124 


A PEON IN POLITICS 


other for ‘Villa money.’ He stopped that by another 
decree, ordering sixty days’ imprisonment for anybody 
who discriminated against his currency. 

But still the silver and bank-bills refused to come 
out of the ground, and these Villa needed to buy arms 
and supplies for his army. So he simply proclaimed 
to the people that after the tenth of February Mexican 
silver and bank-bills would be regarded as counterfeit, 
and that before that time they could be exchanged for 
his own money at par in the State Treasury. But the 
large sums of the rich still eluded him. Most of the 
financiers declared that it was all a bluff, and held on. 
But lo! on the morning of February tenth, a decree was 
pasted up on the walls all over Chihuahua City, an- 
nouncing that from that time on all Mexican silver 
and bank-notes were counterfeit and could not be ex- 
changed for Villa money in the Treasury, and anyone 
attempting to pass them was liable to sixty days in the 
penitentiary. A great howl went up, not only from 
the capitalists, but from the shrewd misers of distant 
villages. 

About two weeks after the issue of this decree, I was 
taking lunch with Villa in the house which he had con- 
fiscated from Manuel Gomeros and used as his official 
residence. A delegation of three peons in sandals ar- 
rived from a village in the Tarahumare to protest 
against the Counterfeit Decree. 

“But, mi General,” said the spokesman, ‘‘we did not 
hear of the decree until to-day. We have been using 
bank-bills and silver in our village. We had not seen 
your money, and we did not know. . . .” 


125 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“You have a good deal of money?” interrupted Villa 
suddenly. 

“Yes, mi General.” 

‘Three or four or five thousand, perhaps?” 

“More than that, mz General.’ 

*‘Sefiores,” Villa squinted at them ferociously, “sam- 
ples of my money reached your village within twenty- 
four hours after it was issued. You decided that my ~ 
government would not last. You dug holes under your 
fireplaces and put the silver and bank-notes there. You 
knew of my first proclamation a day after it was posted 
up in the streets of Chihuahua, and you ignored it. 
The Counterfeit Decree you also knew as soon as it was 
issued. You thought there was always time to change 
if it became necessary. And then you got frightened, 
and you three, who have more money than anyone — 
else in the village, got on your mules and rode down 
here. Sefiores, your money is counterfeit. You are 
poor men!” 

“Valgame dios!’’ cried the oldest of the three, sweat-_ 
ing profusely. 7 

“But we are ruined, mt General!—I swear to you— — 
We did not know—We would have accepted—There is 
no food in the village——” : 

The General in Chief meditated for a moment. 

“I will give you one more chance,” he said, “‘not for 
you, but for the poor people of your village who can 
buy nothing. Next Wednesday at noon bring all your 


= ae So 


money, every cent of it, to the Treasury, and I will see ‘ 
what can be done.” N4 
To the perspiring financiers who waited hat in hand 


126 


A PEON IN POLITICS 


out in the hall, the news spread by word of mouth; and 
Wednesday at high noon one could not pass the Treas- 
ury door for the eager mob gathered there 


Villa’s great passion was schools. He believed that 
land for the people and schools would settle every ques- 
tion of civilization. Schools were an obsession with 
him. Often I have heard him say: ‘‘When I passed 
such and such a street this morning I saw a lot of kids. 
Let’s put a school there.” Chihuahua has a population 
of under 40,000 people. At different times Villa estab- 
lished over fifty schools there. The great dream of his 
life has been to send his son to school in the United 
States, but at the opening of the term in February he 
had to abandon it because he didn’t have money enough 
to pay for a half year’s tuition. 

No sooner had he taken over the government of 
Chihuahua than he put his army to work running the 
electric light plant, the street railways, the telephone, 
the water works and the Terrazzas flour mill. He 
delegated soldiers to administer the great haciendas 
which he had confiscated. He manned the slaughter- 
house with soldiers, and sold Terrazzas’s beef to the 
people for the government. A thousand of them he 
put in the streets of the city as civil police, prohibiting 
on pain of death stealing, or the sale of liquor to the 
army. A soldier who got drunk was shot. He even 
tried to run the brewery with soldiers, but failed be- 
cause he couldn’t find an expert maltster. “The only 
thing to do with soldiers in time of peace,” said Villa, 


127 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“is to put them to work. An idle soldier is always 
thinking of war.” 

In the matter of the political enemies of the Revolu- 
tion he was just as simple, just as effective. Two 
hours after he entered the Governor’s palace the for- 
eign consuls came in a body to ask his protection for — 
200 Federal soldiers who had been left as a police force 
at the request of the foreigners. Before answering 
them, Villa said suddenly: ‘Which is the Spanish con- 
sul?” Scobell, the British vice-consul, said: “I repre- 
sent the Spaniards.” “All right!” snapped Villa. 
“Tell them to begin to pack. Any Spaniard caught 
within the boundaries of this State after five days will 
be escorted to the nearest wall by a firing squad.” 

The consuls gave a gasp of horror. Scobell began a 
violent protest, but Villa cut him short. 

“This is not a sudden determination on my part,” 
he said; “I have been thinking about this since 1910. 
The Spaniards must go.” 

Letcher, the American consul, said: ‘General, I 
don’t question your motives, but I think you are mak- 
ing a grave political mistake in expelling the Span- 
iards. The government at Washington will hesitate a 
long time before becoming friendly to a party which 
makes use of such barbarous measures.” 

*“Sefior Consul,” answered Villa, “we Mexicans have 


had three hundred years of the Spaniards. They have 


not changed in character since the Conquistadores. 


They disrupted the Indian empire and enslaved the 
people. We did not ask them to mingle their blood 
with ours. ‘Twice we drove them out of Mexico and 


128 


A PEON IN POLITICS 


allowed them to return with the same rights as Mex- 
icans, and they used these rights to steal away our 
land, to make the people slaves, and to take up arms 
against the cause of liberty. They supported Porfirio 
Diaz. They were perniciously active in politics. It 
was the Spaniards who framed the plot that put Huerta 
in the palace. When Madero was murdered the 
Spaniards in every State in the Republic held banquets 
of rejoicing. They thrust on us the greatest super- 
stition the world has ever known—the Catholic Church. 
They ought to be killed for that alone. I consider we 
are being very generous with them.” 

Scobell insisted vehemently that five days was too 
short a time, that he couldn’t possibly reach all the 
Spaniards in the State by that time; so Villa extended 
the time to ten days. 

The rich Mexicans who had oppressed the people 
and opposed the Revolution, he expelled promptly from 
the State and confiscated their vast holdings. By a 
simple stroke of the pen the 17,000,000 acres and in- 
numerable business enterprises of the Terrazzas family 
became the property of the Constitutionalist govern- 
ment, as well as the great lands of the Creel family 
and the magnificent palaces which were their town 
houses. Remembering, however, how the Terrazzas 
exiles had once financed the Orozco Revolution, he im- 
prisoned Don Luis Terrazzas, Jr., as a hostage in his 
own house in Chihuahua. Some particularly obnoxious 
political enemies were promptly executed in the peni- 
tentiary. The Revolution possesses a black book in 
which are set down the names, offenses, and property of 


129 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


those who have oppressed and robbed the people. The 
Germans, who had been particularly active politically, 
the Englishmen and Americans, he does not yet dare to 
molest. ‘Their pages in the black book will be opened 
when the Constitutionalist government is established in 
Mexico City; and there, too, he will settle the account 
of the Mexican people with the Catholic Church. 


Villa knew that the reserve of the Banco Minero, 
amounting to about $500,000 gold, was hidden some- 
where in Chihuahua. Don Luis Terrazzas, Jr., was a di- 
rector of that bank. When he refused to divulge the 
hiding-place of the money, Villa and a squad of soldiers 
took him out of his house one night, rode him on a 
mule out into the desert, and strung him up to a tree 
by the neck. He was cut down just in time to save 
his life, and led Villa to an old forge in the Terrazzas 
iron works, under which was discovered the reserve of 
the Banco Minero. ‘Terrazzas went back to prison 
-badly shaken, and Villa sent word to his father in El 
Paso that he would release the son upon payment of 
$500,000 ransom. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE HUMAN. SIDE 


ILLA has two wives, one a patient, simple woman 

who was with him during all his years of out- 

lawry, who lives in El Paso, and the other a 
cat-like, slender young girl, who is the mistress of his 


130 


THE HUMAN SIDE 


house in Chihuahua. He is perfectly open about it, 
though lately the educated, conventional Mexicans who 
have been gathering about him in ever-increasing num- 
bers have tried to hush up the fact. Among the peons 
it is not only not unusual but customary to have more 
than one mate. 

One hears a great many stories of Villa’s violating 
women. I asked him if that were true. He pulled his 
mustache and stared at me for a minute with an in- 
scrutable expression. “I never take the trouble to 
deny such stories,” he said. “They say I am a bandit, 

too. Well, you know my history. But tell me; have 
you ever met a husband, father or brother of any 
'woman that I have violated?” He paused: “Or even 
a witness?” 


It is fascinating to watch him discover new ideas. 
‘Remember that he is absolutely ignorant of the 
troubles and confusions and readjustments of modern 
civilization. “Socialism,” he said once, when I wanted 
_to know what he thought of it: “Socialism—is it a 
thing? I only see it in books, and I do not read much.” 
Once I asked him if women would vote in the new Re- 
public. He was sprawled out on his bed, with his coat 
unbuttoned. “Why, I don’t think so,” he said, startled, 
suddenly sitting up. “What do you mean—vote? Do 
you mean elect a government and make laws?” I said I 
did and that women already were doing it in the United 
“States. “Well,” he said, scratching his head: “if they 
do it up there I don’t see that they shouldn’t do it 


131 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


down here.” ‘The idea seemed to amuse him enormously. | 
He rolled it over and over in his mind, looking at me | 
and away again. “It may be as you say,” he said; “but | 
I have never thought about it. Women seem to me | 
to be things to protect, to love. They have no stern- 
ness of mind. They can’t consider anything for its 
right or wrong. They are full of pity and softness, — 
Why,” he said, “‘a woman would not give an order to — 
execute a traitor.” 

“T am not so sure of that, mi General,’ I said. 
‘Women can be crueller and harder than men.” 

He stared at me, pulling his mustache. And then 
he began to grin. He looked slowly to where his wife 
was setting the table for lunch. ‘“‘Oiga,” he said, “come 
here. Listen. Last night I caught three traitors 
crossing the river to blow up the railroad. What shall 
I do with them? Shall I shoot them or not?” 

Embarrassed, she seized his hand and kissed it. ‘Oh, 
I don’t know anything about that,” she said. “You 
know best.” 

“No,” said Villa. “TI leave it entirely to you. Those 
men were going to try to cut our communications be- 
tween Juarez and Chihuahua. They were traitors— 
Federals. What shall I do? Shall I shoot them or 
not?” 

“Oh, well, shoot them,” said Mrs. Villa. 

Villa chuckled delightedly. ‘There is something in 
what you say,” he remarked, and for days afterward 
went around asking the cook and the chambermaids 
whom they would like to have for President of Mexico. 


132 


THE HUMAN SIDE 


He never missed a bull-fight, and every afternoon 
at four o’clock he was to be found at the cock-pit, 
where he fought his own birds with the happy enthu- 
siasm of a small boy. Im the evening he played, 
faro in some gambling hall. Sometimes in the late 
morning he would send a fast courier after Luis 
Leon, the bull-fighter, and telephone personally to 
the slaughter-house, asking if they had any fierce 
bulls in the pen. They almost always did have, and 
we would all get on horseback and gallop through the 
streets about a mile to the big adobe corrals. Twenty 
cowboys cut the bull out of the herd, threw and tied 
him and cut off his sharp horns, and then Villa and 
Luis Leon and anybody else who wanted to would take 
the professional red capes and go down into the ring; 
Luis Leon with professional caution, Villa as stubborn 
and clumsy as the bull, slow on his feet, but! swift 
as an animal with his body and arms. Villa would 
walk right up to the pawing, infuriated animal, and, 
with his double cape, slap him insolently across the 
face, and, for half an hour, would follow the greatest 
sport I ever saw. Sometimes the sawed-off horns of 
the bull would catch Villa in the seat of the trousers 
and propel him violently across the ring; then he would 
turn and grab the bull by the head and wrestle with 
him with the sweat streaming down his face until five 
or six compafieros seized the bull’s tail and hauled him 
plowing and bellowing back. 

Villa never drinks nor smokes, but he will outdance 
the most ardent novio in Mexico. When the order was 
given for the army to advance upon Torreon, Villa 


133 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


stopped off at Camargo to be best man at the wedding 
of one of his old compadres. He danced steadily with- 
out stopping, they said, all Monday night, all Tues- 
day, and all Tuesday night, arriving at the front on 
Wednesday morning with blood-shot eyes and an air 
of extreme lassitude. 


CHAPTER V 


THE FUNERAL OF ABRAM GONZALES 


HE fact that Villa hates useless pomp and cere- 
mony makes it more impressive when he does 
appear on a public occasion. He has the knack 

of absolutely expressing the strong feeling of the great 
mass of the people. In February, exactly one year 
after Abram Gonzales was murdered by the Federals 
at Bachimba Cajion, Villa ordered a great funeral cere- 
mony to be held in the City of Chihuahua. Two trains, 
carrying the officers of the army, the consuls and repre- 
sentatives of the foreign colony, left Chihuahua early 
in the morning to take up the body of the dead Gov- 
ernor from its resting-place under a rude wooden cross 
in the desert. Villa ordered Major Fierro, his Su-i 
perintendent of Railroads, to get the trains ready—' 
but Fierro got drunk and forgot; and when Villa and | 
his brilliant staff arrived at the railway station the 
next morning the regular passenger train to Juarez 
was just leaving and there was no other equipment on 
hand. Villa himself leaped on to the already moving 


134 


FUNERAL OF ABRAM GONZALES 


engine and compelled the engineer to back the train 
up to the station. Then he walked through the train, 
ordering the passengers out, and switched it in the 
direction of Bachimba. They had no sooner started 
than he summoned Fierro before him and discharged 
him from the superintendency of the railroads, appoint- 
ing Calzado in his place, and ordered the latter to re- 
turn at once to Chihuahua and be thoroughly informed 
about the railroads by the time he returned. At Ba- 
chimba Villa stood silently by the grave with the tears 
rolling down his cheeks. For Gonzales had been his 
close friend. Ten thousand people stood in the heat 
and dust at Chihuahua railway station when the funeral 
train arrived, and poured weeping through the narrow 
streets behind the army, at the head of which walked 
Villa beside the hearse. His automobile was waiting, 
but he angrily refused to ride, stumbling stubbornly 
along in the dirt of the streets with his eyes on the 
ground, 


That night there was a velada in the Theater of the 
Heroes, an immense auditorium packed with emotional 
peons and their women. The ring of boxes was bril- 
liant with officers in their full dress, and wedged behind 
them up the five high balconies were the ragged poor. 
Now, the velada is an entirely Mexican institution. 
First there comes a speech, then a “recitation” on the 
piano, then a speech, followed by a patriotic song ren- 
dered by a chorus of awkward little Indian girls from 
the public school with squeaky voices, another speech, 

135 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


and a soprano solo from “Trovatore” by the wife of 
some government official, still another speech, and so 


| 
| 


| 
| 


on for at least five hours. Whenever there is a promi- | 


nent funeral, or a national holiday, or a President’s 


anniversary, or, in fact, an occasion of the least im- — 


portance, a velada must be held. It is the conventional 
and respectable way of celebrating anything. Villa 
sat in the left hand stage box and controlled the pro- 


ceedings by tapping a little bell. The stage itself 


was brilliantly hideous with black bunting, huge masses 
of artificial flowers, abominable crayon portraits of 
Madero, Pifio Suarez and the dead Governor, and red, 
white and green electric lights. At the foot of all this 
was a very small, plain, black wooden box which held 
the body of Abram Gonzales. 

The velada proceeded in an orderly and exhausting 
manner for about two hours. Local orators, trembling 
with stage fright, mouthed the customary Castilian ex- 


travagant phrases, and little girls stepped on their 


own feet and murdered Tosti’s “Good-bye.” Villa, 
with his eyes riveted on that wooden box, never moved 
nor spoke. At the proper time he mechanically tapped 
the little bell, but after a while he couldn’t stand it 
any longer. A large fleshy Mexican was in the mid- 
dle of Handel’s “Largo” on the grand piano, when Villa 
stood erect. He put his foot on the railing of the 
box and leaped to the stage, knelt, and took up the 
coffin in his arms. MHandel’s “Largo” petered out. 
Silent astonishment paralyzed the audience. Holding 
the black box tenderly in his arms as a mother with 


136 


ed 


VILLA AND CARRANZA 


her baby, not looking at anyone, Villa started down 
the steps of the stage and up the aisle. Instinctively, 
the house rose; and as he passed out through the swing- 
ing doors they followed on silently behind him. He 
strode down between the lines of waiting soldiers, his 
sword banging on the floor, across the dark square to 
the Governor’s palace; and, with his own hands, put 
the coffin on the flower-banked table waiting for it in 
the audience hall. It had been arranged that four 
generals in turn should stand the death watch, each 
for two hours. Candles shed a dim light over the 
table and the surrounding floor, but the rest of the 
room was in darkness. A dense mass of silent, breath- 
‘ing people packed the doorway. Villa unbuckled his 
sword and threw it clattering into a corner. Then 
he took his rifle from the table and stood the first 
watch. 


CHAPTER VI 


VILLA AND CARRANZA 


: T seems incredible to those who don’t know him, 
| that this remarkable figure, who has risen from 
| obscurity to the most prominent position in Mex- 
ico in three years, should not covet the Presidency of 
\the Republic. But that is in entire accordance with the 
| simplicity of his character. When asked about it he 
answered as always with perfect directness, just in 
the way that you put it to him. He didn’t quibble 


137 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


over whether he could or could not be President of 
Mexico. He said: “I am a fighter, not a statesman, 
I am not educated enough to be President. I only 
learned to read and write two years ago. How could 
I, who never went to school, hope to be able to talk 
with the foreign ambassadors and the cultivated gen- 
tlemen of the Congress? It would be bad for Mexico 
if an uneducated man were to be President. There is 
one thing that I will not do,—and that is to take a 
position for which I am not fitted. There is only one 
order of my Jefe (Carranza) which I would refuse 
to obey,—if he would command me to be a President 
or a Governor.” On behalf of my paper I had to ask 
him this question five or six times. Finally he became 
exasperated. “I have told you many times,” he said, 
“that there is no possibility of my becoming Presi- 
dent of Mexico. Are the newspapers trying to make 
trouble between me and my Jefe? This is the last time 
that I will answer that question. ‘The next corre- 
spondent that asks me I will have him spanked and 
sent to the border.” For days afterward he went 
around grumbling humorously about the chatito (pug- 
nose) who kept asking him whether he wanted to be 
President of Mexico. The idea seemed to amuse him. 
Whenever I went to see him after that he used to say, 
at the end of our talk: “Well, aren’t you going to ask 
me to-day whether I want to be President?” 


He never referred to Carranza except as “my Jefe,” 
and he obeyed implicitly the slightest order from “the 


138 


— ee a ae ey ee oe 


VILLA AND CARRANZA 


First Chief of the Revolution.” His loyalty to Car- 
ranza was perfectly obstinate. He seemed to think 
that in Carranza were embodied the entire ideals of 
the Revolution. This, in spite of the fact that many 
of his advisers tried to make him see that Carranza 
was essentially an aristocrat and a reformer, and that 
the people were fighting for more than reform. 

Carranza’s political program, as set forth in the 
plan of Guadelupe, carefully avoids any promise of 
settlement of the land question, except a vague en- 
dorsement of Madero’s plan of San Luis Potosi, and 
it is evident that he does not intend to advocate any 
radical restoration of the land to the people until he 
becomes provisional president—and then to proceed 
very cautiously. In the meantime he seems to have 
left it to Villa’s judgment, as well as all other details 
of the conduct of the Revolution in the north. But 
Villa, being a peon, and feeling with them, rather than 
consciously reasoning it out, that the land question is 
the real cause of the Revolution, acted with character- 
istic promptness and directness. No sooner had he 
settled the details of government of Chihuahua State, 
and appointed Chao his provisional governor, than he 
issued a proclamation, giving sixty-two and one-half 
acres out of the confiscated lands to every male citizen 
of the State, and declaring these lands inalienable for 
any cause for a period of ten years. In the State of 
Durango the same thing has happened and as other 
states are free of Federal garrisons, he will pursue the 
same policy. 


139 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


CHAPTER VII 


THE RULES OF WAR 


N the field, too, Villa had to invent an entirely 
() original method of warfare, because he never had 

a chance to learn anything of accepted military 
strategy. In that he is without the possibility of 
any doubt the greatest leader Mexico has ever had. 
His method of fighting is astonishingly like Napoleon’s. 
Secrecy, quickness of movement, the adaptation of his 
plans to the character of the country and of his sol- 
diers,—the value of intimate relations with the rank 
and file, and of building up a tradition among the en- 
emy that his army is invincible, and that he himself 
bears a charmed life,—these are his characteristics. 
He knew nothing of accepted European standards of 
strategy or of discipline. One of the troubles of the 
Mexican federal army is that its officers are thoroughly 
saturated with conventional military theory. The 
Mexican soldier is still mentally at the end of the eigh- 
teenth century. He is, above all, a loose, individual, 
guerrilla fighter. Red-tape simply paralyzes the ma- 
chine. When Villa’s army goes into battle he is not 
hampered by salutes, or rigid respect for officers, or 
trigonometrical calculations of the trajectories of pro- 
jectiles, or theories of the percentage of hits in a thou- 
sand rounds of rifle fire, or the function of cavalry, in- 
fantry and artillery in any particular position, or 
rigid obedience to the secret knowledge of its superiors. 


140 


THE RULES OF WAR 


It reminds one of the ragged Republican army that 
Napoleon led into Italy. It is probable that Villa 
doesn’t know much about those things himself. But 
he does know that guerrilla fighters cannot be driven 
blindly in platoons around the field in perfect step, 
that men fighting individually and of their own free 
will are braver than long volleying rows in the trenches, 
lashed to it by officers with the flat of their swords. 
And where the fighting is fiercest—when a ragged mob 
of fierce brown men with hand bombs and rifles rush ~ 
the bullet-swept streets of an ambushed town—Villa 
is among them, like any common soldier. 

Up to his day, Mexican armies had always carried 
with them hundreds of the women and children of the 
soldiers ; Villa was the first man to think of swift forced 
marches of bodies of cavalry, leaving their women be- 
hind. Up to his time no Mexican army had ever 
abandoned its base; it had always stuck closely to 
the railroad and the supply trains. But Villa struck 
terror into the enemy by abandoning his trains and 
throwing his entire effective army upon the field, as 
he did at Gomez Palacio. He invented in Mexico that 
most demoralizing form of battle—the night attack. 
When, after the fall of Torreon last September, he 
withdrew his entire army in the face of Orozco’s ad- 
vance from Mexico City and for five days unsuccess- 
fully attacked Chihuahua, it was a terrible shock to 
the Federal General when he waked up one morning 
and found that Villa had sneaked around the city under 
cover of darkness, captured a freight train at Ter- 
razzas and descended with his entire army upon the 


141 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


comparatively undefended city of Juarez. It wasn’t 


fair! Villa found that he hadn’t enough trains to 


carry all his soldiers, even when he had ambushed and 
captured a Federal troop train, sent south by General 
Castro, the Federal commander in Juarez. So he tele- 
graphed that gentleman as follows, signing the name 
of the Colonel in command of the troop train: “En- 
gine broken down at Moctezuma. Send another engine 
and five cars.”” The unsuspecting Castro immediately 
dispatched a new train. Villa then telegraphed him: 
“Wires cut between here and Chihuahua. Large force 
of rebels approaching from south. What shall I do?” 
Castro replied: “Return at once.” And Villa obeyed, 
telegraphing cheering messages at every station along 
the way. The Federal commander got wind of his 
coming about an hour before he arrived, and left, with- 
out informing his garrison, so that, outside of a small 
massacre, Villa took Juarez almost without a shot. And 
with the border so near he managed to smuggle across 
enough ammunition to equip his almost armless forces 
and a week later sallied out and routed the pursuing 
Federal forces with great slaughter at Tierra Blanca. 


General Hugh L. Scott, in command of the Ameri- 
can troops at Fort Bliss, sent Villa a little pamphlet 
containing the Rules of War adopted by the Hague 
Conference. He spent hours poring over it. It 
interested and amused him hugely. He said: ‘What is 
this Hague Conference? Was there a representative 
of Mexico there? Was there a representative of the 
Constitutionalists there? It seems to me a funny thing 


142 


THE RULES OF WAR 


to make rules about war. It’s not a game. What is 
the difference between civilized war and any other kind 
of war? If you and I are having a fight in a cantina 
we are not going to pull a little book out of our pockets 
and read over the rules. It says here that you must 
not use lead bullets; but I don’t see why not. They 
do the work.” 

For a long time afterward he went around popping 
questions at his officers like this: “If an invading army 
takes a city of the enemy, what must you do with the 
women and children?” 

As far as I could see, the Rules of War didn’t make 
any difference in Villa’s original method of fighting. 
The colorados he executed wherever he captured them; 
because, he said, they were peons like the Revolution- 
ists and that no peon would volunteer against the 
cause of liberty unless he were bad. The Federal of- 
ficers also he killed, because, he explained, they were 
educated men and ought to know better. But the Fed- 
eral common soldiers he set at liberty because most | 
of them were conscripts, and thought that they were 
fighting for the Patria. There is no case on record 
where he wantonly killed a man. Anyone who did so 
he promptly executed—except Fierro. 

Fierro, the man who killed Benton, was known as 
“The Butcher” throughout the army. He was a great 
handsome animal, the best and cruellest rider and 
fighter, perhaps, in all the revolutionary forces. In 
his furious lust for blood Fierro used to shoot down a 
hundred prisoners with his own revolver, only stop- 
ping long enough to reload. He killed for the pure 


143 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


joy of it. During two weeks that I was in Chihuahua, 
Fierro killed fifteen inoffensive citizens in cold blood. 
But there was always a curious relationship between 
him and Villa. He was Villa’s best friend; and Villa 
loved him like a son and always pardoned him. 

But Villa, although he had never heard of the Rules 
of War, carried with his army the only field hospital 
of any effectiveness that any Mexican army has ever 
carried. It consisted of forty box-cars enameled in- 
side, fitted with operating tables and all the latest 
appliances of surgery, and manned by more than sixty 
doctors and nurses. Every day during the battle shut- 
tle trains full of the desperately wounded ran from 
the front to the base hospitals at Parral, Jimenez and 
Chihuahua. He took care of the Federal wounded just 
as carefully as of his own men. Ahead of his own sup- 
ply train went another train, carrying two thousand 
sacks of flour, and also coffee, corn, sugar, and cigar- 
ettes to feed the entire starving population of the 
country around Durango City and Torreon. | 

The common soldiers adore him for his bravery and 
his coarse, blunt humor. Often I have seen him 
slouched on his cot in the little red caboose in which 
he always traveled, cracking jokes familiarly with 
twenty ragged privates sprawled on the floor, chairs 
and tables. When the army was entraining or detrain- 
ing, Villa personally would be on hand in a dirty old 
suit, without a collar, kicking mules in the stomach 
and pushing horses in and out of the stock-cars. Get- 
ting thirsty all of a sudden, he would grab some sol- 
dier’s canteen and drain it, in spite of the indignant 


144 


THE DREAM OF PANCHO VILLA 


protests of its owner; and then tell him to go over to 
the river and say that Pancho Villa said that he should 
fill it there. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE DREAM OF PANCHO VILLA 


T might not be uninteresting to know the pas- 
sionate dream—the vision which animates this ig- 
norant fighter, “not educated enough to be Presi- 

dent of Mexico.” He told it to me once in these words: 
“When the new Republic is established there will never 
be any more army in Mexico. Armies are the greatest 
support of tyranny. There can be no dictator with- 
out an army. 

“We will put the army to work. In all parts of 
the Republic we will establish military colonies com- 
posed of the veterans of the Revolution. The State 
will give them grants of agricultural lands and estab- 
lish big industrial enterprises to give them work. Three 
days a week they will work and work hard, because 
honest work is more important than fighting, and only 
honest work makes good citizens. And the other three 
days they will receive military instruction and go out 
and teach all the people how to fight. Then, when 
the Patria is invaded, we will just have to telephone 
from the palace at Mexico City, and in half a day all 
the Mexican people will rise from their fields and fac- 
tories, fully armed, equipped and organized to defend 
their children and their homes. 


145 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“My ambition is to live my life in one of those mili- 
tary colonies among my compaferos whom I love, who 
have suffered so long and so deeply with me. I think 
I would like the government to establish a leather fac- 
tory there where we could make good saddles and bri- 
dles, because I know how to do that; and the rest of 
the time I would like to work on my little farm, raising 
cattle and corn. It would be fine, I think, to help make 
Mexico a happy place.” 


PART THREE 


_ JIMENEZ AND POINTS WEST ae 


, 
~ 


ert gees 


CHAPTER I 


DONA LUISA’S HOTEL 


WENT south from Chihuahua on a troop train 
bound for the advance near Escalon. Attached 
to the five freight cars, filled with horses and 

carrying soldiers on top, was a coach in which I was 
allowed to ride with two hundred noisy pacificos, male 
and female. It was gruesomely suggestive: car win- 
dows smashed, mirrors, lamps and plush seats torn out, 
and bullet holes after the manner of a frieze. The 
time of our departure was not fixed, and no one knew 
when the train would arrive. The railroad had just 
been repaired. In places where there had once been 
bridges we plunged into arroyos and snorted up the 
farther bank on a rickety new-laid track that bent 
and cracked under us. All day long the roadside was 
lined with immense distorted steel rails, torn up with a 
chain and a backing engine by the thorough Orozco 
last year. There was a rumor that Castillo’s bandits 
were planning to blow us up with dynamite sometime 
during the afternoon... . 

Peons with big straw sombreros and beautifully faded 
serapes, Indians in blue working clothes and cowhide 
sandals, and squat-faced women with black shawls 
around their heads, and squalling babies,—packed the 


149 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


seats, aisles and platforms, singing, eating, spitting, | 
chattering. Occasionally there staggered by a ragged 
man with a cap labeled “‘conductor” in tarnished gold | 
letters, very drunk, embracing his friends and severely 
demanding the tickets and safe conducts of strangers, 
I introduced myself to him by a small present of United 
States currency. He said, “Sefior, you may travel 
freely over the Republic henceforth without payment. 
Juan Algomero is at your orders.” An officer smartly 
uniformed, with a sword at his side, was at the rear 
of the car. He was bound for the front, he said, to 
lay down his life for his country. His only baggage 
consisted of four wooden bird-cages full of meadow- 
larks. Farther to the rear two men sat across the 
aisle from each other, each with a white sack contain- 
ing something that moved and clucked. As soon as. 
the train started these bags were opened to disgorge 
two large roosters, who wandered up and down the 
aisles eating crumbs and cigarette butts. The two 
owners immediately raised their voices. ‘Cock-fight, 
sefiores! Five pesos on this valiant and handsome 
rooster. Five pesos, sefiores!” The males at once 
deserted their seats and rushed clamoring toward the 
center of the car. Not one of them appeared to lack 
the necessary five dollars. In ten minutes the two 
promoters were kneeling in the middle of the aisle, 
throwing their birds. And, as we rattled along, sway- 
ing from side to side, swooping down into the gullies 
and laboring up the other bank, a whirling mass of 
feathers and flashing steel rolled up and down the aisle. 
That over, a one-legged youth stood up and played 


150 


DONA LUISA’S HOTEL 


“Whistling Rufus” on a tin flute. Someone had a 
leather bottle of tequila, of which we all took a swig. 
From the rear of the car came shouts of “Vamonos 
a bailar! Come on and dance!” And in a moment 
five couples, all men, of course, were madly two-step- 
ping. A blind old peasant was assisted to climb upon 
his seat, where he quaveringly recited a long ballad 
about the heroic exploits of the great General Maclovio 
_ Herrera. Everybody was silently attentive and show- 
ered pennies into the old man’s sombrero. Occasionally 
there floated back to us the singing of the soldiers on 
the box-cars in front and the sound of their shots as 
they caught sight of a coyote galloping through the 
mesquite. Then everybody in our car would make a 
rush for the windows, pulling at their revolvers, and 
shoot fast and furiously. 

All the long afternoon we ambled slowly south, the 
western rays of the sun burning as they struck our 
faces. Every hour or so we stopped at some station, 
shot to pieces by one army or the other during the 
three years of Revolution; there the train would be 
besieged by vendors of cigarettes, pine-nuts, bottles of 
milk, camotes, and tamales rolled in corn-husks. Old 
women, gossiping, descended from the train, built 
themselves a little fire and boiled coffee. Squatting 
there, smoking their corn-husk cigarettes, they told 
one another interminable love stories. 

It was late in the evening when we pulled into Jime- 
nez. I shouldered through the entire population, come 
down to meet the train, passed between the flaring 
_ torches of the little row of candy booths, and went 


151 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


along the street, where drunken soldiers alternated 
with painted girls, walking arm in arm, to Dofia 
Luisa’s Station Hotel. It was locked. I pounded on 
the door and a little window opened at the side, show- 
ing an incredibly ancient woman’s face, crowned with 
straggly white hair. This being squinted at me through 
a pair of steel spectacles and remarked, “Well, I guess 
youre all right!’ Then there came a sound of bars 


being taken down, and the door swung open. Dofia — 


Luisa herself, a great bunch of keys at her belt, stood 
just inside. She held a large Chinaman by the ear, 
addressing him in fluent and profane Spanish. 
“Chango!” she said: “What do you mean by telling a 
guest at this hotel that there wasn’t any more hot 
cakes? Why didn’t you make some more? Now take 
your dirty little bundle and get out of here!” Witha 
final wrench she released the squealing Oriental. ‘“These 
damn heathen,” she announced in English, “the nasty 
beggars! I don’t take any lip from a dirty Chinaman 
who can live on a nickel’s worth of rice a day!” ‘Then 
she nodded apologetically toward the door. ‘‘There’s 
so many damned drunken generals around to-day that 
I’ve got to keep the door locked. I don’t want the 
Mexican s in here!” 

Dofia Luisa is a small, dumpy American woman more 
than eighty years of age—a benevolent New-England- 
grandmother sort of person. For forty-five years she 
has been in Mexico, and thirty or more years ago, when 


her husband died, she began to keep the Station Hotel. — 


War and peace make no difference to her. The Ameri- 


can flag flies over the door and in her house she alone ~ 


152 


tice 5 


DUELLO A LA FRIGADA 


is boss. When-.Pascual Orozco took Jimenez, his men 
began a drunken reign of terror in the town. Orozco 
himself—Orozco the invincible, the fierce, who would 
as soon kill a person as not—came drunk to the Sta- 
tion Hotel with two of his officers and several women. 
Dojia Luisa planted herself across the doorway—alone 
—and shook her fist in his face. ‘‘Pascual Orozco,’’ she 
cried, “‘take your disreputable friends and go away 
from here. I’m keeping a decent hotel!’ And Orozco 
went. ... 


CHAPTER II 


DUELLO A LA FRIGADA 


WANDERED up the mile-long, incredibly dilapi- 
dated street that leads to the town. A street- 
car came past, drawn by one galloping mule 

and bulging with slightly intoxicated soldiers. Open 
surreys full of officers with girls on their laps rolled 
along. Under the dusty, bare alamo trees each win- 
dow held its sefiorita, with a blanket-wrapped caballero 
in attendance. There were no lights. The night was 
dry and cold and full of a subtle exotic excitement; 
guitars twanged, snatches of song and laughter and 
low voices, and shouts from distant streets, filled the 
darkness. Occasionally little companies of soldiers 
on foot came along, or a troop of horsemen in high 
sombreros and serapes jingled silently out of the black- 
ness and faded away again, bound probably for the 
relief of guard. 


153 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


In one quiet stretch of street near the bull-ring, 
where there are no houses, I noticed an automobile 
speeding from the town. At the same time a gallop- 
ing horse came from the other direction, and just in 
front of me the headlights of the machine illumined 
the horse and his rider, a young officer in a Stetson 
hat. The automobile jarred to a grinding stop and 
a voice from it cried, “Haltoie!’’ 

“Who speaks?” asked the horseman, pulling his 
mount to its haunches. 

“I, Guzman!’ and the other leaped to the ground 
and came into the light, a coarse, fat Mexican, with 
a sword at his belt. 

“Como le va, mi Capitan?” The officer flung himself 
from his horse. They embraced, patting each other on 
the back with both hands. 

“Very well. And you? Where are you going?” 

“To see Maria.” 

The captain laughed. “Don’t do it,” he said; “I’m 
going to see Maria myself, and if I see you there I shall 
certainly kill you.” 

“But I am going just the same. I am as quick with 
my pistol as you, sefior.” 

“But you see,” returned the other mildly, “we both 
cannot go!” 

“Perfectly !” 

“Oiga!’’ said the captain to his chauffeur. ‘Turn 
your car so as to throw the light evenly along the side- 
walk. . . . And now we will walk thirty paces apart 
and stand with our backs turned until you count three. 


154 


peesee 


DUELLO A LA FRIGADA 


Then the man who first puts a bullet through the other 
man’s hat wins... .” 

Both men drew immense revolvers and stood a mo- 
ment in the light, spinning the chambers. 

“LTisto! Ready!’ cried the horseman. 

“Hurry it,” said the captain. “It is a bad thing 
to balk love.” 

Back to back, they had already begun to pace the 
distance. 

“One!’? shouted the chauffeur. 

“Two (73 

But quick as a flash the fat man wheeled in the 
trembling, uncertain light, threw down his lifted arm, 
and a mighty roar went soaring slowly into the heavy 
night. The Stetson of the other man, whose back was 
still turned, took an odd little leap ten feet beyond 
him. He spun around, but the captain was already 
climbing into his machine. 

“Bueno!” he said cheerfully. “I win. Until to-mor- 
row then, amigo!’ And the automobile gathered speed 
and disappeared down the street. The horseman slowly 
went to where his hat lay, picked it up and examined it. 
He stood a moment meditating, and then deliberately 
mounted his horse and he also went away. I had al- 
ready started some time before... . 


In the plaza the regimental band was playing “El 
' Pagare,” the song which started Orozco’s Revolution. 
It was a parody of the original, referring to Madero’s 
' payment of his family’s $750,000 war claims as soon 
- as he became president, that spread like wildfire over 


155 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


the Republic, and had to be suppressed with police 
and soldiers. ‘El Pagare” is even now taboo in most 
revolutionary circles, and I have heard of men being 
shot for singing it; but in Jimenez at this time the 
utmost license prevailed. Moreover, the Mexicans, un- 
like the French, have absolutely no feeling for sym- 
bols. Bitterly antagonistic sides use the same flag; 
in the plaza of almost every town still stand eulogistic 
statues of Porfirio Diaz; even at officers’ mess in the 
field I have drunk from glasses stamped with the like- 
ness of the old dictator, while Federal army uniforms 
are plentiful m the ranks. 

But “El Pagare” is a swinging, glorious tune, and 
under the hundreds of little electric light globes strung 
on the plaza a double procession marched gaily round 
and round. On the outside, in groups of four, went 
the men, mostly soldiers. On the inside, in the op- 
posite direction, the girls walked arm in arm. As they 
passed they threw handfuls of confetti at one another. 
They never talked to one another, never stopped; but 
as a girl caught a man’s fancy, he slipped a lover’s 
note into her hand as she went by, and she answered 
with a smile if she hked him. Thus they met, and later 
the girl would manage to let the caballero know her 
address; this would lead to long talks at her window 
in the darkness, and then they would be lovers. It was 
a delicate business, this handing of notes. Every man 
carried a gun, and every man’s girl was his jealously 
guarded property. It was a killing matter to hand a 
note to someone else’s girl. The close-packed throng 
moved gaily on, thrilling to the music. . . . Beyond 


156 


DUELLO A LA FRIGADA 


the plaza gaped the ruins of Marcos Russek’s store, 
which these same men had looted less than two weeks 
before, and at one side the ancient pink cathedral tow- 
ered among its fountains and great trees, with the iron 
and glass illuminated sign, “Santo Cristo de Bur- 
gos,” shining above the door. 

There, at the side of the plaza, I came upon a little 
group of five Americans huddled upon a bench. They 
were ragged beyond belief, all except a slender youth 
in leggings and a Federal officer’s uniform, who wore 
a crownless Mexican hat. Feet protruded from their 
shoes, none had more than the remnants of socks, all 
were unshaven. One mere boy wore his arm in a sling 
made out of a torn blanket. They made room for me 
gladly, stood up, crowded around, cried how good it 
was to see another American among all these damned 
greasers. 

“What are you fellows doing here?” I asked. 

“We’re soldiers of fortune!” said the boy with the 
wounded arm. 

“Aw !? interrupted another. “Soldiers of 

“Ye see it’s this way,” began the soldierly looking 
youth. “We’ve been fighting right along in the Bri- 
gada Zaragosa—was at the battle of Ojinaga and 
everything. And now comes an order from Villa to 
discharge all the Americans in the ranks and ship ’em 
back to the border. Ain’t that a hell of a note?” 

“Last night they gave us our honorable discharges 
and threw us out of the cuartel,” said a one-legged man 
with red hair. 

“And we ain’t had any place to sleep and nothing to 


157 


199 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


eat ” broke in a little gray-eyed boy whom they 
called the Major. 

“Don’t try and panhandle the guy!” rebuked the sol- 
dier indignantly. ‘Ain’t we each going to get fifty Mex 
in the morning?” 

We adjourned for a short time to a nearby restau- 
rant, and when we returned I asked them what they 


were going to do. | 

“The old U. S. for mine,” breathed a good-looking 
black Irishman who hadn’t spoken before. “I’m going 
back to San Fran and drive a truck again. I’m sick of 
greasers, bad food and bad fighting.” 

“I got two honorable discharges from the United 
States army,” announced the soldierly youth proudly. 
“Served through the Spanish War, I did. I’m the only 
soldier in this bunch.” 'The others sneered and cursed 
sullenly. ‘‘Guess I'll reénlist when I get over the bor- 
der.” 

““Not for mine,” said the one-legged man. “I’m 
wanted for two murder charges—I didn’t do it, swear 
to God I didn’t—it was a frame-up. But a poor guy 
hasn’t got a chance in the United States. When they 
ain’t framing up some fake charge against me, they 
jail me for a ‘vag.’ Tm all right though,” he went 
on earnestly. “I’m a hard-working man, only I can’t 
get no job.” 

The Major raised his hard little face and cruel eyes. 
“I got out of a reform school in Wisconsin,” he said, 
“and I guess there’s some cops waiting for me in El 
Paso. I always wanted to kill somebody with a gun, 
and I done it at Ojinaga, and I ain’t got a bellyful 


158 


DUELLO A LA FRIGADA 


yet. They told us we could stay if we signed Mex citi- 
zenship papers; I guess I’[l sign to-morrow morning.” 

“The hell you will,” cried the others. ‘“That’s a 
rotten thing to do. Suppose we get Intervention and 
you have to shoot against your own people. You won’t 
catch me signing myself away to be a greaser.” 

“That’s easy fixed,” said the Major. ‘When I go 
back to the States I leave my name here. I’m going 
to stay down here till I get enough of a stake to go 
back to Georgia and start a child-labor factory.” _ 

The other boy had suddenly burst into tears. “I 
got my arm shot through in Ojinaga,” he sobbed, “and 
now they’re turning me loose without any money, and 
I can’t work. When I get to El Paso the cops ’Il jail 
me and [’ll have to write my dad to come and take me 
home to California. I run away from there last year,” 
he explained. 

“Look here, Major,” I advised, “you’d better not 
stay down here if Villa wants Americans out of the 
ranks. Being a Mexican citizen won’t help you if In- 
tervention comes.” 

“Perhaps you’re right,” agreed the Major thought- 
fully. “Aw, quit your bawling, Jack! I guess I’ll beat 
it over to Galveston and get on a South American boat. 
They say there’s a revolution started in Peru.” 

The soldier was about thirty, the Irishman twenty- 
five, and the three others somewhere between sixteen 
and eighteen. 

“What did you fellows come down here for?” I 
asked, 


159 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“Excitement!” answered the soldier and the Irish- 
man, grinning. ‘The three boys looked at me with 
eager, earnest faces, drawn with hunger and hardship. 

“Loot!” they said simultaneously. I cast an eye at 
their dilapidated garments, at the throngs of tattered 
volunteers parading around the plaza, who hadn’t been. 
paid for three months, and restrained a violent impulse 
to shout with mirth. Soon I left them, hard, cold mis- 
fits in a passionate country, despising the cause for 
which they were fighting, sneering at the gaiety of the 
irrepressible Mexicans. And as I went away I said, 
“By the way; what company did you fellows belong 
to? What did you call yourselves?” 

The red-haired youth answered, “The Foreign Le- 
gion!” he said. 

I want to say right here that I saw few soldiers of 
fortune except one—and he was a dry-as-dust scientist 
studying the action of high explosives in field-guns— 
who would not have been tramps in their own country. 

It was late night when I finally got back to the hotel. 
Dofia Luisa went ahead to see to my room, and I 
stopped a moment in the bar. Two or three soldiers, 
evidently officers, were drinking there—one pretty far 
gone. He was a pock-marked man with a trace of 
black mustache; his eyes couldn’t seem to focus. But 
when he saw me he began to sing a pleasant little song: 


Yo tengo un pistole 

Con manago de marfil 

Para matar todos los Gringos 

Qui viennen por ferrocarru! 
160 


SAVED BY A WRIST-WATCH 


(I have a pistol with a marble handle 
(With which to kill all the Americans who come by 
railroad !) 


I thought it diplomatic to leave, because you can 
never tell what a Mexican will do when he’s drunk. His 
temperament is much too complicated. 

Dofia Luisa was in my room when I got there. With 
a mysterious finger to her lips she shut the door and 
produced from beneath her skirt a last year’s copy of 
the Saturday Evening Post, in an incredible state of 
dissolution. “I got it out of the safe for you,” she 
said. ‘The damn thing’s worth more than anything 
in the house. I’ve been offered fifteen dollars for it by 
Americans going out to the mines. You see we haven’t 
had any American magazines in a year now.” 


CHAPTER III 
SAVED BY A WRIST-WATCH 


FTER that what could I do but read the 
precious magazine, although I had read it be- 
fore. I lit the lamp, undressed, and got into 

bed. Just then came an unsteady step on the gallery 

outside and my door was flung violently open. Framed 
in it stood the pock-marked officer who had been drink- 
ing in the bar. In one hand he carried a big revolver. 

For a moment he stood blinking at me malevolently, 

then stepped inside and closed the door with a bang. 


161 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“T am Lieutenant Antonio Montoya, at your orders,” 
he said. “I heard there was a Gringo in this hotel and 
I have come to kill you.” 

“Sit down,” said I politely. I saw he was drunkenly 
in earnest. He took off his hat, bowed politely and 
drew up a chair. Then he produced another revolver 
from beneath his coat and laid them both on the ta- 
ble. They were loaded. 

“Would you like a cigarette?” I offered him the 
package. He took one, waved it in thanks, and 
lit it at the lamp. Then he picked up the guns and 
pointed them both at me. His fingers tightened slowly 
on the triggers, but relaxed again. I was too far gone 
to do anything but just wait. 

“My only difficulty,” said he, lowering his weapons, 
‘is to determine which revolver I shall use.” 

“Pardon me,” I quavered, “‘but they both appear a 
little obsolete. That Colt forty-five is certainly an 
1895 model, and as for the Smith and Wesson, between 
ourselves it is only a toy.” 

“True,” he answered, looking at them a little rue- 
fully. “If I had only thought I would have brought 
my new automatic. My apologies, sefior.” He sighed 
and again directed the barrels at my chest, with an ex- 
pression of calm happiness. ‘However, since it is so, 
we must make the best of it.” I got ready to jump, 
to duck, to scream. Suddenly his eye fell upon the ta- 
ble, where my two-dollar wrist-watch was lying. 

“What is that?” he asked. 

“A watch!” Eagerly I demonstrated how to fasten 
it on. Unconsciously the pistols slowly lowered. With 


162 


SAVED BY A WRIST-WATCH 
i 
parted lips and absorbed attention he watched it de- 
lightedly, as a child watches the operation of some new 
mechanical toy. 
“Ah,” he breathed. “Que esta bonita! How pretty!” 
“Tt is yours,” said I, unstrapping it and offering it 
to him. He looked at the watch, then at me, slowly 
brightening and glowing with surprised joy. Into his 
outstretched hand I placed it. Reverently, carefully, 
he adjusted the thing to his hairy wrist. Then he rose, 
beaming down upon me. The revolvers fell unnoticed 
to the floor. Lieutenant Antonio Montoya threw his 
‘arms around me. 
_ “Ah, compadre!’’ he cried emotionally. 


The next day I met him at Valiente Adiana’s store’ 
in the town. We sat amicably in the back room drink- 
ing native aguardiente, while Lieutenant Montoya, my 
best friend in the entire Constitutionalist army, told 
me of the hardships and perils of the campaign. For 
three weeks now Maclovio Herrera’s brigade had lain 
‘at Jimenez under arms, waiting the emergency call for 
the advance on Torreon. 

“This morning,” said Antonio, “the Constitutionalist 
‘spies intercepted a telegram from the Federal com- 
‘mander in Zacatecas City to General Velasco in Tor- 
reon. He said that upon mature judgment he had de- 
cided that Zacatecas was an easier place to attack than 
to defend. Therefore he reported that his plan of 
campaign was this. Upon the approach of the Con- 
‘stitutionalist forces he intended to evacuate the city 
and then take it again.” 


163 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“Antonio,” I said, “I am going a long journey across 
the desert to-morrow. I am going to drive to Magis- 
tral. I need a mozo. I will pay three dollars a week.” 

“<’Sta bueno!’ cried Lieutenant Montoya. ‘‘What- 
ever you wish, so that I can go with my amigo!” 

“But you are on active service,” said I. “How can 
you leave your regiment?” 

“Oh, that’s all right,” answered Antonio. “I won’t 
say anything about it to my colonel. They don’t need 
me. Why, they’ve got five thousand other men here.” 


CHAPTER IV 


SYMBOLS OF MEXICO 


N the early dawn, when yet the low gray houses 

and the dusty trees were stiff with cold, we laid 

a bull-whip on the backs of our two mules and 

rattled down the uneven streets of Jimenez and out into 

the open country. A few soldiers, wrapped to the eyes 

in their serapes, dozed beside their lanterns. There 
was a drunken officer sleeping in the gutter. 

We drove an ancient buggy, whose broken pole was 
mended with wire. The harness was made of bits of 
old iron, rawhide and rope. Antonio and I sat side by 
side upon the seat, and at our feet dozed a dark, serious- 
minded youth named Primitivo Aguilar. Primitivo had 
been hired to open and shut gates, to tie up the har- 
ness when it broke, and to keep watch over wagon and 


164 


SYMBOLS OF MEXICO 


mules at night, because bandits were reported to in- 
fest the roads. 

The country became a vast fertile plain, cut up by 
irrigating ditches which were overshadowed by long 
lines of great alamo trees, leafless and gray as ashes. 
Like a furnace door, the white-hot sun blazed upon us, 
and the far-stretched barren fields reeked a thin mist. 
A cloud of white dust moved with us and around us. 
By the church of the Hacienda San Pedro we stopped 
ana dickered with an aged peon for a sack of corn and 
straw for the mules. Farther along was an exquisite 
low building of pink plaster, set back from the road in 
a grove of green willows. ‘That?’ said Antonio. ‘Oh, 
that is nothing but a flour mill.”” We had lunch in the 
long whitewashed, dirt-floored room of a peon’s house 
at another great hacienda, whose name I forget, but 
which I know had once belonged to Luis Terrazzas and 
was now the confiscated property of the Constitution- 
alist government. And that night we made camp be- 
side an irrigation ditch miles from any house, in the 
middle of the bandit territory. 

After a dinner of chopped-up meat and peppers, tor- 
tillas, beans and black coffee, Antonio and I gave 
Primitivo his instructions. He was to keep watch be- 
side the fire with Antonio’s revolver and, if he heard 
anything, was to wake us. But on no account was he 
to go to sleep. If he did we would kill him. Primi- 


> 


tivo said, “Si, sefior,” very gravely, opened his eyes 
wide, and gripped the pistol. Antonio and I rolled up 
in our blankets by the fire. 


I must have gone to sleep at once, because when I 
165 


INSURGENT MEXICO 
was wakened by Antonio’s rising, my watch showed only 
half an hour later. From the place where Primitive 
had been placed on guard came a series of hearty snores’ 
The lieutenant walked over to him. 

“Primitivo!” he said. 

No answer. | 

“Primitivo, you fool!” Our sentinel stirred in his 
sleep and turned over with noises indicative of com- 
fort. : 

“Primitivo!” shouted Antonio, violently kicking ha 

He gave absolutely no response. 

Antonio drew back and launched a kick at his back 
that lifted him several feet into the air. With a start 
Primitivo woke. He started up alertly, waving the 


revolver. 
‘Quien vive?” cried Primitivo. 


The next day took us out of the lowlands. We en- 
tered the desert, winding over a series of rolling plains, 
sandy and covered with black mesquite and here and 
there an occasional cactus. Now we began to see be- 
side the road those sinister little wooden crosses that 
the country people erect on the spot where some man 
died a violent death. Around the horizon barren pur- 
ple mountains hemmed us in. To the right, across a 
vast dry valley, a white and green and gray hacienda 
stood like a city. An hour later we passed the first of 
those great fortified square ranchos that one comes 
across once a day lost in the folds of this tremendous 
country. Night gathered straight above in the cloud- 
less zenith, while all the skyline still was luminous with 


166 


SYMBOLS OF MEXICO 


clear light, and then the day snuffed out, and 


_ stars burst out in the dome of heaven like a rocket. 
_ Antonio and Primitivo, in that queer harsh Mexican 


harmony which sounds like nothing so much as a fiddle 
with frazzled strings, sang “Esperanza” as we jogged 
along. It grew cold. For leagues and leagues around 


_ was a blasted land, a country of death. It was hours 


since we had passed a house. 
Antonio claimed to know of a water-hole somewhere 


_ vaguely ahead. But toward midnight, which was black 


and without moon, we discovered that the road upon 


_ which we were traveling suddenly petered out in a dense 
, mesquite thicket. Somewhere we had turned off the 
| Camino Real. It was late and the mules were worn 


—S —_ 


out. There seemed nothing for it but a “dry camp,” 
for so far as we knew there was no water anywhere 
near. 

Now we had unharnessed the mules and fed them, 
and were lighting our fire, when somewhere in the dense 
thicket of chaparral stealthy footsteps sounded. They 


_ moved a space and then were still. Our little blaze of 


Ol lhl 


== eee —— == 


_ greasewood crackled fiercely, lighting up a leaping, 
_ glowing radius of about ten feet. Beyond that all was 


black. Primitivo made one backward leap into the shel- 


ter of the wagon; Antonio drew his revolver, and we 


froze beside the fire. The sound came again. 
“Who lives?” said Antonio. There was a little shuf- 
fling noise out in the brush, and then a voice. 
“What party are you?” it asked hesitantly. 
“Maderistas,” answered Antonio. “Pass!” 
“Tt is safe for pacificos?” queried the invisible one. 


167 


’ 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“On my word,” I cried. “Come out that we may see 
you.” 

At that very moment two vague shapes materialized | 
on the edge of the firelight glow, almost without a 
sound—two peons, we saw as soon as they came close, 
wrapped tightly in their torn blankets. One was an> 
old, wrinkled, bent man wearing homemade sandals, his 
trousers hanging in rags upon his shrunken legs; the 
other a very tall, barefooted youth, with a face so pure 


and so simple as to almost verge upon idiocy. Friendly, 


warm as sunlight, eagerly curious as children, they 
came forward, holding out their hands. We shook | 
hands with each of them in turn, greeting them wit 
elaborate Mexican courtesy. 

“Good evening, friend. How are you?” 

“Very well, gracias. And you?” 

“Well, gracias. And how are all your people?” 

“Well, thanks. And yours?” 

“Well, thanks. What have you of new here?” 

“Nada. Nothing. And you?” 

“Nothing. Sit down.” 

“Oh, thanks, but I am well standing.” 

“Sit down. Sit down.” 

“A thousand thanks. Excuse us for a moment.” 

They smiled and faded away once more into the 
thicket. In a minute they reappeared, with great arm- 
fuls of dried mesquite branches for our fire. 

‘“‘We are rancheros,” said the elder, bowing. “Wes 
keep a few goats, and our houses are at your orders, — 
and our corrals for your mules, and our small stock 
of corn. Our ranchitos are very near here in the 


1 . 
68 ( 


oI 
* 


SYMBOLS OF MEXICO 


mesquite. We are very poor men, but we hope you will 
do us the honor of accepting our hospitality.” It was 
an occasion for tact. 

“A thousand times many thanks, 
litely, “‘but we are, unfortunately, in great haste and 


” said Antonio po- 


must leave early. We would not like to disturb your 
household at that hour.” 

They protested that their families and their houses 

were entirely ours, to be used as we saw fit with the 
greatest delight on their part. I do not remember how 
we finally managed to evade the invitation without 
wounding them, but I do recall that it took half an 
hour of courteous talking. For we knew, in the first 
place, that we would be unable to leave for hours in 
the morning if we accepted, because Mexican manners 
are that haste to leave a house signifies dissatisfac- 
tion with the entertainment; and then, too, one could 
not pay for one’s lodging, but would have to bestow 
a handsome present upon the hosts—which we could 
none of us afford. 
At first they politely refused our invitation to dine, 
but after much urging we finally persuaded them to 
accept a few tortillas and chile. It was ludicrous and 
pitiful to see how wretchedly hungry they were, and 
how they attempted to conceal it from us. 

After dinner, when they had brought us a bucket of 
water out of sheer kindly thoughtfulness, they stood 
for a while by our fire, smoking our cigarettes and 
1olding out their hands to the blaze. I remember how 
their serapes hung from their shoulders, open in front 
so the grateful warmth could reach their thin bodies 


169 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


—and how gnarled and ancient were the old man’s out- 
stretched hands, and how the ruddy light glowed upon | 
the other’s throat, and kindled fires in his big eyes. | 
Around them stretched the desert, held off only by our. 
fire, ready to spring in upon us when it should die. | 
Above the great stars would not dim. Coyotes wailed 
somewhere out beyond the firelight like demons in pain. 
I suddenly conceived these two human beings as sym-_ 
bols of Mexico—courteous, loving, patient, poor, so 


long slaves, so full of dreams, so soon to be free. 

“When we saw your wagon coming here,” said the. 
old man, smiling, “our hearts sank within us. We. 
thought you were soldiers, come, perhaps, to take 
away our last few goats. So many soldiers have come - 
in the last few years—so many. It is mostly the Fed- 
erals—the Maderistas do not come unless they are 
hungry themselves. Poor Maderistas!” P 

“Ay,” said the young man, “my brother that I loved 
very much died in the eleven days’ fighting around - 
Torreon. Thousands have died in Mexico, and still 
more thousands shall fall. Three years—it is long for . 
war in a land. Too long!’ The old man murmured, — 
“Valgame Dios!’ and shook his head. “But thei 


39 


shall come a day 
. “It is said,” remarked the old man quaveringly, that 
the United States of the North covets our country— 
that Gringo soldiers will come and take away my goats 
an the eri ye eas , 

“That is a lie,” exclaimed the other, animated. “It 


is the rich Americanos who want to rob us, just as the 
170 


+e 
Hi 


" 


SYMBOLS OF MEXICO 


rich Mexicans want to rob us. It is the rich all over 
the world who want to rob the poor.” 

The old man shivered and drew his wasted body 
nearer to the fire. “I have often wondered,” said he 
mildly, “‘why the rich, having so much, want so much. 
The poor, who have nothing, want so very little. Just 
m few goats... .” 

His compadre lifted his chin like a noble, smiling 
gently. “I have never been out of this little country 
here—not even to Jimenez,” he said. ‘‘But they tell 
me that there are many rich lands to the north and 
south and east. But this is my land and I love it. 
For the years of me, and my father and my grand- 


father, the rich men have gathered the corn and 
_ held it in their clenched fists before our mouths. And 
only blood will make them open their hands to their 


_ brothers.”’ 


The fire died down. At his post slept the alert Pri- 


_ mitivo. Antonio stared into the embers, a faint glori- 


, 


' fied smile upon his mouth, his eyes shining like stars. 


“Adio!” he said suddenly, as one who sees a vision. 


“When we get into Mexico City what a baile shall be 


} 
| 


held! How drunk I shall get! .. .” 


ow . ve xy 24% es 


aa ae = a Say 


— ate 


PART FOUR 


A PEOPLE IN ARMS 


‘ 
i 
‘ 


oo 


ae 


CHAPTER I 
“ON TO TORREON!” 


T Yermo there is nothing but leagues and leagues 
of sandy desert, sparsely covered with scrubby 
mesquite and dwarf cactus, stretching away 

on the west to jagged, tawny mountains, and on the 
east to a quivering skyline of plain. A battered water- 
tank, with too little dirty alkali water, a demol- 
ished railway station shot to pieces by Orozco’s can- 
non two years before, and a switch track compose the 
town. There is no water to speak of for forty miles. 
There is no grass for animals. For three months in the 
|spring bitter, parching winds drive the yellow dust 
across it. 
Along the single track in the middle of the desert 
lay ten enormous trains, pillars of fire by night and of 
black smoke by day, stretching back northward far- 
‘ther than the eye could reach. Around them, in the 
chaparral, camped nine thousand men without shelter, 
each man’s horse tied to the mesquite beside him, where ~ 
hung his one serape and red strips of drying meat. 
From fifty cars horses and mules were being unloaded. 
Covered with sweat and dust, a ragged trooper plunged 
into a cattle-car among the flying hoofs, swung himself 
upon a horse’s back, and jabbed his spurs deep in, with 


175 


INSURGENT MEXICO | 


a yell. Then came a terrific drumming of frightened : 
animals, and suddenly a horse shot violently from the | 
open door, usually backward, and the car belched flying | 


masses of horses and mules. Picking themselves up, 


they fled in terror, snorting through wide nostrils at 
the smell of the open. Then the wide, watchful circle 
of troopers turned vaqueros lifted the great coils of 


their lassoes through the choking dust, and the run- | 
ning animals swirled round and round upon one an- 
other in a panic. Officers, orderlies, generals with their © 
staffs, soldiers with halters, hunting for their mounts, | 
galloped and ran past in inextricable confusion. Buck-— 
ing mules were being harnessed to the caissons. Troop- | 
ers who had arrived on the last trains wandered about 
looking for their brigades. Way ahead some men were , 
shooting at a rabbit. From the tops of the box-cars 
and the flat-cars, where they were camped by hundreds, | 
the soldaderas and their half-naked swarms of children 
looked down, screaming shrill advice and asking every- 
body in general if they had happened to see Juan Mo- | 
fieros, or Jesus Hernandez, or whatever the name of 
their man happened to be. . . . One man trailing a 
rifle wandered along shouting that he had had nothing 

to eat for two days and he couldn’t find his woman who — 
made his tortillas for him, and he opined that she had 

deserted him to go with some of another bri- 

gade. . . . The women on the roofs of the cars said, — 
“Valgame Dios!” and shrugged their shoulders; then 
they dropped him down some three-days-old tortillas, 

and asked him, for the love he bore Our Lady of Guade- 

lupe, to lend them a cigarette. A clamorous, dirty 


176 


ree 


{ 
} 


\“ON TO TORREON!” 


throng stormed the engine of our train, screaming for 


: water. When the engineer stood them off with a re- 


— 


ee 


ee 


volver, telling them there was plenty of water in the 
water-train, they broke away and aimlessly scattered, 
while a fresh throng took their places. Around the 
twelve immense tank-cars, a fighting mass of men and 
animals struggled for a place at the little faucets cease- 
lessly pouring. Above the place a mighty cloud of 
dust, seven miles long and a mile wide, towered up into 
the still, hot air, and, with the black smoke of the en- 
gines, struck wonder and terror into the Federal out- 


_ posts fifty miles away on the mountains back of Ma- 


5 pimi. 


When Villa left Chihuahua for Torreon, he closed the 
telegraph wires to the north, stopped train service to 


. Juarez, and forbade on pain of death that anyone 
' should carry or send news of his departure to the 
- United States. His object was to take the Federals 


by surprise, and it worked beautifully. No one, not 


~ even Villa’s staff, knew when he would leave Chihuahua ; 


the army had delayed there so long that we all believed 
it would delay another two weeks. And then Saturday 


' morning we woke to find the telegraph and railway cut, 


and three huge trains, carrying the Brigada Gonzalez- 
Ortega, already gone. The Zaragosa left the next day, 
and Villa’s own troops the following morning. Moving 
with the swiftness that always characterizes him, Villa 
had his entire army concentrated at Yermo the day 
afterward, without the Federals knowing that he had 
left Chihuahua. . 

There was a mob around the portable field telegraph 


1777 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


that had been rigged up in the ruined station. Inside, 
the instrument was clicking. Soldiers and officers in- 
discriminately choked up the windows and the door, 
and every once in a while the operator would shout 
something in Spanish and a perfect roar of laughter 
would go up. It seemed that the telegraph had acci- 
dentally tapped a wire that had not been destroyed by 
the Federals—a wire that connected with the Federal 
military wire from Mapimi to Torreon. 

“Listen!? cried the operator. ‘Colonel Argumedo 
in command of the cabecillos colorados in Mapimi is 
telegraphing to General Velasco in Torreon. He says 
that he sees smoke and a big dust cloud to the north, 
and thinks that some rebel troops are moving south 
from Escalon!” 

Night came, with a cloudy sky and a rising wind 
that began to lift the dust. Along the miles and miles | 
of trains, the fires of the soldaderas flared from the 
tops of the freight-cars. Out into the desert so far 
that finally they were mere pin-points of flame stretched 
the innumerable camp-fires of the army, half obscured 
by the thick, billowing dust. The storm completely 
concealed us from Federal watchers. ‘“‘Even God,” re- 
marked Major Leyva, “even God is on the side of 
Francisco Villa!’ We sat at dinner in our converted 
box-car, with young, great-limbed, expressionless Gen- 
eral Maximo Garcia and his brother, the even huger 
red-faced Benito Garcia, and little Major Manuel 
Acosta, with the beautiful manners of his race. Gar- 
cia had long been holding the advance at Escalon. He 
and his brothers—one of whom, José Garcia, the idol 


178 


THE ARMY. AT YERMO 


of the army, had been killed in battle—but a short four 
years ago were wealthy hacendados, owners of im- 
mense tracts of land. They had come out with Ma- 
dero. . . . I remember that he brought us a jug of 
whisky, and refused to discuss the Revolution, declar- 
ing that he was fighting for better whisky! As I write 
this comes a report that he is dead from a bullet wound 
received in the battle of Sacramento. ... 

Out in the dust storm, on a flat-car immediately 
ahead of ours, some soldiers lay around their fire with 
their heads in their women’s laps, singing “The Cock- 
roach,” which tells in hundreds of satirical verses what 
the Constitutionalists would do when they captured 
Juarez and Chihuahua from Mercado and Orozco. 

Above the wind one was aware of the immense sullen 
murmur of the host, and occasionally some sentry 
challenged in a falsetto howl: “Quien vive?” And the 
answer: “Chiapas!” “Que gente?’ “Chao!” ... 
Through the night sounded the eerie whistle of the ten 
locomotives at intervals as they signaled back and forth 
to one another. 


CHAPTER II 


THE ARMY AT YERMO 


came to the car for breakfast—a lean, dark 
Mexican, who is called ‘*The Honorable” and 
“The Most Brave” by the soldiers. He is by far the 
most simple-hearted and disinterested soldier in Mexico. 


179 


\ T dawn next morning General Torribio Ortega 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


He never kills his prisoners. He has refused to take 
a cent from the Revolution beyond his meager salary. 


Villa respects and trusts him perhaps beyond all his 
Generals. Ortega was a poor man, a cowboy. He sat 
there, with his elbows on the table, forgetting his break- 
fast, his big eyes flashing, smiling his gentle, crooked 
smile, and told us why he was fighting. 

“T am not an educated man,” he said. “But I know 


that to fight is the last thing for any people. Only 


when things get too bad to stand, eh? And, if we are 
going to kill our brothers, something fine must come 
out of it, eh? You in the United States do not know 
what we have seen, we Mexicans! We have looked on 
at the robbing of our people, the simple, poor people, 
for thirty-five years, eh? We have seen the rurales 
and the soldiers of Porfirio Diaz shoot down our 
brothers and our fathers, and justice denied to them. 
We have seen our little fields taken away from us, and 
all of us sold into slavery, eh? We have longed for 
our homes and for schools to teach us, and they have 
laughed at us. All we have ever wanted was to be 
let alone to live and to work and make our country 
great, and we are tired—tired and sick of being 
cheated.) 1.4.77 

Outside in the dust, that whirled along under a sky 
of driving clouds, long nes of soldiers on horseback 
stood in the obscurity, while their officers passed along 
in front, peering closely at cartridge-belts and rifles. 

“Geronimo,” said a Captain to one trooper, “ge 
back to the ammunition train and fill up the gaps in 


180. 


THE ARMY, AT YERMO 


your cartouchera. You fool, you’ve been wasting your 
cartridges shooting coyotes!’ 

Across the desert westward toward the distant moun- 
tains rode strings of cavalry, the first to the front. 
About a thousand went, in ten different lines, diverg- 
ing like wheel spokes; the jingle of their spurs ringing, 
their red-white-and-green flags floating straight out, 
crossed bandoliers gleaming dully, rifles flopping across 
their saddles, heavy, high sombreros and many-colored 
blankets. Behind each company plodded ten or twelve 
women on foot, carrying cooking utensils on their heads 
and backs, and perhaps a pack mule loaded with sacks 
of corn. And as they passed the cars they shouted back 
to their friends on the trains. 

“Poco tiempo California!” cried one. 

“Oh! there’s a colorado for you!” 
“T’ll bet you were with Salazar in Orozco’s Revolution. 
Nobody ever said ‘Poco tiempo California’ except Sala- 
zar when he was drunk!” 

The other man looked sheepish. “Well, maybe I 
was,” he admitted. “But wait till I get a shot at my 
old compaieros. Ill show you whether I’m a Maderista 


yelled another. 


or not!” 

A little Indian in the rear cried: “I know how much 
of a Maderista you are, Luisito. At the first taking 
of Torreon, Villa gave you the choice of turning your 
coat or getting a cabronasso or balasso through the 
head!” And, joshing and singing, they jogged 
southwest, became small, and finally faded into the 
dust. 

Villa himself stood leaning against a car, hands in his 


181 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


pockets. He wore an old slouch hat, a dirty shirt with-| 
out a collar, and a badly frayed and shiny brown suit. | 
All over the dusty plain in front of him men and horses | 
had sprung up like magic. There was an immense con-| 
fusion of saddling and bridling—a cracked blowing of | 
tin bugles. The Brigada Zaragosa was getting ready | 


to leave camp—a flanking column of two thousand men 
who were to ride southeast and attack Tlahualilo and | 
Sacramento. Villa, it seemed, had just arrived at 
Yermo. He had stopped off Monday night at Camargo 
to attend the wedding of a compadre. His face was 
drawn into lines of fatigue. 


“Carramba!” he was saying with a grin; “we started 
dancing Monday evening, danced all night, all the next 
day, and last night, too! What a baile! And what 
muchachas! The girls of Camargo and Santa Ros- 
alia are the most beautiful in Mexico! I am worn 
out—rendido! It was harder work than twenty 
battles. 36700. 

Then he listened to the report of some staff officer 
who dashed up on horseback, gave a concise order with- 
out hesitating, and the officer rode off. He told Sefior 
Calzado, General Manager of the Railroad, in what or- 
der the trains should proceed south. He indicated to 
Sefior Uro, the Quartermaster-general, what supplies” 
should be distributed from the troop trains. To Sefior 
Munoz, Director of the Telegraph, he gave the name of 
a Federal captain surrounded by Urbina’s men a week 
before and killed with all his men in the hills near La 
Cadena, and ordered him to tap the Federal wire and 
send a message to General Velasco in Torreon purport- 


182 


THE ARMY AT YERMO 


ing to be a report from this Captain from Conejos, 
and asking for orders. . . . He seemed to know and 
order everything. 

We had lunch with General Eugenio Aguirre Bena- 
vides, the quiet, cross-eyed little commander of the 
Zaragosa Brigade, a member of one of the culti- 
vated Mexican families that gathered around Madero 
in the first Revolution; with Raul Madero, brother of 
the murdered President, second in command of the 
Brigade, who is a graduate of an American University, 
and looks like a Wall Street bond salesman; with Colo- 
nel Guerra, who went through Cornell, and Major 
Leyva, Ortega’s nephew, a historic full-back on the 
Notre Dame football team... . 

In a great circle, ready for action, the artillery was 
parked, with caissons open and mules corralied in the 
center. Colonel Servin, commander of the guns, sat 
perched high up on an immense bay horse, a ridiculous 
tiny figure, not more than five feet tall. He was wav- 
ing his hand and shouting a greeting across to General 
Angeles, Carranza’s Secretary of War—a tall, gaunt 
man, bareheaded, in a brown sweater, with a war map 
of Mexico hanging from his shoulder; who straddled a 
small burro. In the thick dust-clouds, sweating men 
labored. The five American artillery men had squatted 
down in the lee of a cannon, smoking. They hailed me 
with a shout: 

“Say, bo! What in hell did we ever get into this 
mess for? Nothing to eat since last night—work twelve © 
hours—say, take our pictures, will you?” 


There passed by with a friendly nod the little Cock- 
183 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


ney soldier that had served with Kitchener, and then 
the Canadian Captain Treston, bawling for his inter- 
preter, so that he could give his men some orders about 
the machine guns; and Captain Marinelli, the fat Ital- 
ian soldier of fortune, pouring an interminable and un- 
intelligible mixture of French, Spanish and Italian into 
the ear of a bored Mexican officer. Fierro rode by, 
cruelly roweling his horse with the bloody mouth— 
Fierro, the handsome, cruel and insolent—The Butcher 
they called him, because he killed defenseless prison- 
ers with his revolver, and shot down his own men with- 
out provocation. 

Late in the afternoon the Brigada Zaragosa rode 
away southeast over the desert, and another night came 
down. 

The wind rose steadily in the darkness, growing 
colder and colder. Looking up at the sky, which had 
been ablaze with polished stars, I saw that all was dark 
with cloud. Through the roaring whirls of dust a 
thousand thin lines of sparks from the fires streamed 
southward. The coaling of the engines’ fire boxes made 
sudden glares along the miles of trains. At first we 
thought we heard the sound of big guns in the distance. 
But all at once, unexpectedly, the sky split dazzlingly 
open from horizon to horizon, thunder fell like a blow, 
and the rain came level and thick as a flood. For a mo- — 
ment the human hum of the army was silenced. All the 
fires disappeared at once. And then came a vast shout 
of anger and laughter and discomfiture from the sol- 
diers out on the plain, and the most amazing wail of 
misery from the women that I have ever heard. The 


184 


THE ARMY, AT YERMO 


two sounds only lasted a minute. The men wrapped 
themselves in their serapes and sank down in the shelter 
of the chaparral; and the hundreds of women and chil- 
dren exposed to the cold and the rain on the flat-cars 
and the tops of the box-cars silently and with Indian 
stoicism settled down to wait for dawn. In General 
Maclovio Herrera’s car ahead was drunken laughter 
and singing to a guitar.... 


Daybreak came with a sound of all the bugles in the 
world blowing; and looking out of the car door I saw 
the desert for miles boiling with armed men saddling 
and mounting. A hot sun popped over the western 
mountains, burning in a clear sky. For a moment the 
ground poured up billowing steam, and then there was 
dust again, and a thirsty land. There might never 
have been rain. A hundred breakfast fires smoked from 
the car-tops, and the women stood turning their dresses 
slowly in the sun, chattering and joking. Hundreds 
of little naked babies danced around, while their 
mothers lifted up their little clothes to the heat. A 
thousand joyous troopers shouted to each other that 
the advance was beginning; away off to the left some 
regiment had given away to joy, and was shooting into 
the air. Six more long trains had come in during the 
night, and all the engines were whistling signals. I 
went forward to get on the first train out, and as I 
passed the car of Trinidad Rodriguez, a harsh, femi- 
nine voice cried: “Hey, kid! Come in and get some 
breakfast.” Leaning out of the door were Beatrice 
and Carmen, two noted Juarez women that had been 


185 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


brought to the front by the Rodriguez brothers. I 
went in and sat down at the table with about twelve 
men, several of them doctors in the hospital train, one 
French artillery captain, and an assortment of Mex- 
ican officers and privates. It was an ordinary freight 
box-car like all the private cars, with windows cut in 
the walls, partitions built to shut out the Chinese cook 
in the kitchen, and bunks arranged across sides and 
end. Breakfast consisted of heaping platters of red 
meat with chile, bowls of frijoles, stacks of cold flour 
tortillas, and six bottles of Monopole Champagne. Car- 
men’s complexion was bad, and she was a little stupid 
from the gastronomic combination, but Beatrice’s 
white, colorless face and red hair cut Buster Brown 
fashion fairly radiated a sort of malicious glee. She 
was a Mexican, but talked Tenderloin English without 
an accent. Jumping up from the table, she danced 
around it, pulling the men’s hair. “Hello, you damned 
Gringo,” she laughed at me. “What are you doing 
here? You’re going to get a bullet in you if you don’t 
get careful!” 

A morose young Mexican, already a little drunk, 
snapped at her furiously in Spanish: ‘Don’t you talk 
to him! Do you understand? [ll tell Trinidad how 
you asked the Gringo in to breakfast, and he’ll have 
you shot!” 

Beatrice threw back her head and roared. “Did 
you hear what he said? He thinks he owns me, be- 
cause he once stayed with me in Juarez! ... My 
God!” she went on. “How funny it seems to travel on 
the railroad and not have to buy a ticket!” 


186 


FIRST BLOOD 


“Look here, Beatrice,” I asked her; “we may not 
have such an easy time of it down there. What will 
you do if we get licked?” 

“Who, me?” she cried. “Why, I guess it won’t take 
me long to get friends in the Federal army. I’m a good 
mixer !” 

“What is she saying? What do you say?” asked the 
others in Spanish. 

With the most perfect insolence Beatrice translated 
for them. And in the midst of the uproar that followed 
Baiert. 4. . 


CHAPTER III 


FIRST BLOOD 


HE water train pulled out first. I rode on the 
cow-catcher of the engine, which was already 
occupied by the permanent home of two women 

and five children. They had built a little fire of mes- 
quite twigs on the narrow iron platform, and were 
baking tortillas there; over their heads, against the 
windy roar of the boiler, fluttered a little line of 
BAIL « . 

It was a brilliant day, hot sunshine alternating with 
big white clouds. In two thick columns, one on each 
side of the train, the army was already moving south. 
As far as the eye could reach, a mighty double cloud of 
dust floated over them; and little straggling groups of 
mounted men jogged along, with every now and then a 
big Mexican flag. Between slowly moved the trains; 


187 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


the pillars of black smoke from their engines, at regu- 
lar intervals, growing smaller, until over the northern 
horizon only a dirty mist appeared. 

I went down into the caboose to get a drink of wa- 
ter, and there I found the conductor of the train lying 
in his bunk reading the Bible. He was so interested 


ay 


and amused that he didn’t notice me for a minute. When — 


he did he cried delightedly: “Oiga, I have found a 


great story about a chap called Samson who was muy 


hombre—a good deal of a man—and his woman. She 
was a Spaniard, I guess, from the mean trick she 
played on him. He started out being a good Revolu- 
tionist, a Maderista, and she made him a pelon!”’ 


Pelon means literally “cropped head,” and is the 


slang term for a Federal soldier, because the Federal 
army is largely recruited from the prisons. 

Our advance guard, with a telegraph field operator, 
had gone on to Conejos the night before, and they met 
the train in great excitement. The first blood of the 
campaign had been spilt; a few colorados scouting 
northward from Bermejillo had been surprised and 
killed just behind the shoulder of the big mountain 
which les to the east. The telegrapher also had 
news. He had again tapped the Federal wire, and sent 


to the Federal commander in Torreon, signing the dead 


Captain’s name and asking for orders, since a large 
force of rebels seemed to be approaching from the 
north. General Velasco replied that the Captain 


should hold Conejos and throw out outposts to the 


north, to try and discover how large the force was. At 


the same time the telegrapher had heard a message - 


188 


FIRST BLOOD 


from Argumedo, in command at Mapimi, saying that 
the entire north of Mexico was coming down on Tor- 
reon, together with the Gringo army! 

Conejos was just like Yermo, except that there was 
no water tank. A thousand men, with white-bearded 
old General Rosalio Hernandez riding ahead, went out 
- almost at once, and the repair train followed them a 
few miles to a place where the Federals had burned two 
railroad bridges a few months before. Out beyond the 
last little bivouac of the immense army spread around 
us, the desert slept silently in the heat waves. There 
was no wind. The men gathered with their women on 
the flat-cars, guitars came out, and all night hundreds 
of singing voices came from the trains. 


The next morning I went to see Villa in his car. This 
was a red caboose with chintz curtains on the windows, 
the famous little caboose which Villa has used in all his 
journeys since the fall of Juarez. It was divided by 
partitions into two rooms—the kitchen and the Gen- 
eral’s bedroom. This tiny room, ten by twenty feet, 
was the heart of the Constitutionalist army. There 
were held all the councils of war, and there was scarcely 
room enough for the fifteen Generals who met there. 
In these councils the vital immediate questions of the 
campaign were discussed, the Generals decided what was 
to be done,—and then Villa gave his orders to suit him- 
self. It was painted a dirty gray. On the walls were 
tacked photographs of showy ladies in theatrical poses, 
a large picture of Carranza, one of Fierro, and a pic- 
ture of Villa himself. Two double-width wooden bunks 


189 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


folded up against the wall, in one of which Villa and 
General Angeles slept, and in the other José Rodriguez 
and Doctor Raschbaum, Villa’s personal physician. 
Manat was all... . 

“Que desea, amigo? What do you want?” said Villa, 
sitting on the end of the bunk in blue underclothes. The 
troopers who lounged around the place lazily made way 
for me. 

“T want a horse, mt General.” 


““Ca-r-r-r-at-i, our friend here wants a horse!” 


grinned 
Villa sarcastically amid a burst of laughter from the 
others. “Why, you correspondents will be wanting an 
automobile next! Ozga, sefior reporter, do you know 
that about a thousand men in my army have no horses? 
Here’s the train. What do you want a horse for?” 

“So I can ride with the advance.” 

“No,” he smiled. “There are too many balassos— — 
too many bullets flying in the advance. . . .” 

He was hurrying into his clothes as he talked, and 
gulping coffee from the side of a dirty tin coffee-pot. 
Somebody handed him his gold-handled sword. 

“No! he said contemptuously. “This is to be a 
fight, not a parade. Give me my rifle!’ 

He stood at the door of his caboose for a moment, 
thoughtfully looking at the long lines of mounted 
men, picturesque in their crossed cartridge-belts and 
varied equipment. Then he gave a few quick orders 
and mounted his big stallion. 

“Vamonos!” cried Villa. The bugles brayed and a 
subdued silver clicking ringing sounded as the com- 
panies wheeled and trotted southward in the dust... . 


190 


ON THE CANNON-CAR 


And so the army disappeared. During the day we 
thought we heard cannonading from the southwest, 
where Urbina was reported to be coming down from the 
mountains to attack Mapimi. And late in the after- 
noon news came of the capture of Bermejillo, and a 
courier from Benavides said that he had taken Tla- 
hualilo. 

We were in a fever of impatience to be off. About 
sundown Sefior Calzado remarked that the repair train 
would leave in an hour, so I grabbed a blanket and 
walked a mile up the line of trains to it. 


CHAPTER IV. 


ON THE CANNON-CAR 


HE first car of the repair train was a steel-en- 
qh cased flat-car, upon which was mounted the 
famous Constitutionalist cannon “El Nifio,” 

with an open caisson full of shells behind it. Behind 
that was an armored car full of soldiers, then a car of 
steel rails, and four loaded with railroad ties. The en- 
gine came next, the engineer and fireman hung with 
cartridge-belts, their rifles handy. Then followed two 
or three box-cars full of soldiers and their women. It 
was a dangerous business. A large force of Federals 
were known to be in Mapimi, and the country swarmed 
with their outposts. Our army was already far ahead, 
except for five hundred men who guarded the trains at 
Conejos. If the enemy could capture or wreck the re- 


191 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


pair train the army would be cut off without water, 
food or ammunition. In the darkness we moved out. I 
sat upon the breech of ‘El Nifio,” chatting with Cap- 
tain Diaz, the commander of the gun, as he oiled the 
breech lock of his beloved cannon and curled his verti- 
cal mustachios. In the armored recess behind the gun, 
where the Captain slept, I heard a curious, subdued 
rustling noise. 

“What's that?” 

“Eh?” cried he nervously. “Oh, nothing, nothing!” 

Just then there emerged a young Indian girl with a 
bottle in her hand. She couldn’t have been more than 
seventeen, very lovely. The Captain shot a glance at 
me, and suddenly whirled around. 

“What are you doing here?” he cried furiously to 
her. “Why are you coming out here?” 

“IT thought you said you wanted a drink,” she began. 

I perceived that I was one too many, and excused 
myself. They hardly noticed me. But as I was climb- 
ing over the back of the car I couldn’t help stopping 
and listening. They had gone back to the recess, and 
she was weeping. 

“Didn’t I tell you,’ stormed the Captain, “not to 
show yourself when there are strangers here? I will 
not have every man in Mexico looking at you. . . .” 

I stood on the roof of the rocking steel car as we 
nosed slowly along. Lying on their bellies on the ex- 
treme front platform, two men with lanterns examined 
each foot of the track for wires that might mean mines 
planted under us. Beneath my feet the soldiers and 
their women were having dinner around fires built on 


192 


ON THE CANNON-CAR 


the floor. Smoke and laughter poured out of the loop- 
holes. . . . There were other fires aft, brown-faced, 
ragged people squatting at them, on the car-tops. 
Overhead the sky blazed stars, without a cloud. It was 
cold. After an hour of riding we came to a piece of 
broken track. The train stopped with a jar, the 
engine whistled, and a score of torches and lanterns 
jerked past. Men came running. The flares clustered 
bobbing together as the foremen examined the damage. 
A fire sprang up in the brush, and then another. Sol- 
diers of the train guard straggled by, dragging their 
rifles, and formed impenetrable walls around the fires. 
Iron tools clanged, and the “Wai-hoy!” of men shoving 
rails off the flat-car. A Chinese dragon of workmen 
passed with a rail on their shoulders, then others with 
ties. Four hundred men swarmed upon the broken 
spot, working with extraordinary energy and good hu- 
mor, until the shouts of gangs setting rails and ties, 
and the rattle of sledges on spikes, made a continuous 
roar. It was an old destruction, probably a year old, 
made when these same Constitutionalists were retreat- 
ing north in the face of Mercado’s Federal army, and 
we had it all fixed in an hour. Then on again. Some- 
times it was a bridge burned out, sometimes a hundred 
yards of track twisted into grape vines by a chain and 
a backing engine. We advanced slowly. At one big 
bridge that it would take two hours to prepare, I built 
by myself a little fire in order to get warm. Calzado 
came past, and hailed me. ‘“‘We’ve got a hand-car up 
ahead,” he said, “and we’re going along down and see 
the dead men. Want to come?” 


193 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“What dead men?” 

“Why, this morning an outpost of eighty rurales was 
sent scouting north from Bermejillo. We heard about 
it over the wire and informed Benavides on the left. 
He sent a troop to take them in the rear, and drove 
them north in a running fight for fifteen miles until 
they smashed up against our main body and not one 
got out alive. They’re scattered along the whole way 
just where they fell.” 

In a moment we were speeding south on the hand- 
car. At our right hand and our left rode two silent, 
shadowy figures on horseback—cavalry guards, with 
rifles ready under their arms. Soon the flares and fires 
of the train were left behind, and we were enveloped 
and smothered in the vast silence of the desert. 

“Yes,” said Calzado, “the rwrales are brave. They 
are muy hombres. MRurales are the best fighters Diaz 
and Huerta ever had. ‘They never desert to the Revo- 
lution. They always remain loyal to the established 
government. Because they are police.” 

It was bitter cold. None of us talked much. 

“We go ahead of the train at night,” said the sol- 
dier at my left, “so that if there are any dynamite 


bombs underneath 22 


“We could discover them and dig them out and put 
water in them, carramba!” said another sarcastically. 
The rest laughed. I began to think of that, and it 
made me shiver. The dead silence of the desert seemed 
an expectant hush. One couldn’t see ten feet from the 
track. 

““Oiga!” shouted one of the horsemen. “It was just 


194 


ON THE CANNON-CAR 


here that one lay.” The brakes ground and we tum- 
bled off and down the steep embankment, our lanterns 
jerking ahead. Something lay huddled around the foot 
of a telegraph pole—something infinitely small and 
shabby, like a pile of old clothes. The rurale was upon 
his back, twisted sideways from his hips. He had 
been stripped of everything of value by the thrifty 
rebels—shoes, hat, underclothing. They had left him 
his ragged jacket with the tarnished silver braid, be- 
cause there were seven bullet holes in it; and his trou- 
sers, soaked with blood. He had evidently been much 
bigger when alive—the dead shrink so. A wild red 
beard made the pallor of his face grotesque, until you 
noticed that under it and the dirt, and the long lines of 
sweat of his terrible fight and hard riding, his mouth 
was gently and serenely open as if he slept. His brains 
had been blown out. 

“Carrai!” said one guard. “There was a shot for the 
dirty goat! Right through the head!’ 


The others laughed. ‘“‘Why, you don’t think they SK 


shot him there in the fight, do you, pendeco?”’ cried his 


companion. “No, they always go around and make 
33 


sure afterward 

“Hurry up! I’ve found the other,” shouted a voice 
off in the darkness. 

We could reconstruct this man’s last struggle. He 
had dropped off his horse, wounded—for there was 
blood on the ground—into a little dry arroyo. We 
could even see where his horse had stood while he 
pumped shells into his Mauser with feverish hands, and 
blazed away, first to the rear, where the pursuers came 


195 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


running with Indian yells, and then at the hundreds _ 
and hundreds of bloodthirsty horsemen pouring down 
from the north, with the Demon Pancho Villa at their 
head. He must have fought a long time, perhaps until 
they ringed him round with living flame—for we found 
hundreds of empty cartridges. And then, when the 
last shot was spent, he made a dash eastward, hit at 
every step; hid for a moment under the little railroad 
bridge, and ran out upon the open desert, where he 
fell. There were twenty bullet holes in him. They 
had stripped him of all save his underclothes. He lay 
sprawled in an attitude of desperate action, muscles 
tense, one fist clenched and spread across the dust as if 
he were dealing a blow; the fiercest exultant grin on his 
face. Strong, savage, until one looked closer and saw 
the subtle touch of weakness that death stamps on life 
——the delicate expression of idiocy over it all. They 
had shot him through the head three times—how exas- 
perated they must have been! 

Crawling south through the cold night once more. 
- - - A few miles and then a bridge dynamited, or a 
strip of track wrecked. The stop, the dancing torches, 
the great bonfires leaping up from the desert, and the 
four hundred wild men pouring furiously out and fall- 
ing upon their work. . .. Villa had given orders to 
BULEY. 8 sas 


About two o’clock in the morning I came upon two 
soldaderas squatting around a fire, and asked them if 
they could give me fortillas and coffee. One was an 
old, gray-haired Indian woman with a perpetual grin, 


196 


ON THE CANNON-CAR 


the other a slight girl not more than twenty years old, 
who was nursing a four-months baby at her breast. 
They were perched at the extreme tip of a flat-car, 
their fire built upon a pile of sand, as the train jolted 
and swayed along. Around them, backed against them, 
feet sticking out between them, was a great, inconglom- 
erate mass of sleeping, snoring humans. The rest of 
the train was by this time dark; this was the only patch 
of light and warmth in the night. As I munched my 
tortilla and the old woman lifted a burning coal in her 
fingers to light her corn-husk cigarette, wondering 
where her Pablo’s brigade was this night; and the girl 
nursed her child, crooning to it, her blue-enameled ear- 
rings twinkling,—we talked. 

“Ah! it is a life for us viejas,” said the girl. “Adio, 
but we follow our men out in the campaign, and then 
do not know from hour to hour whether they live or 
die. I remember well when Filadelfo called to me one 
morning in the little morning before it was light—we 
lived in Pachuca—and said: ‘Come! we are going out 
to fight because the good Pancho Madero has been mur- 
dered this day!’ We had only been loving each other 
eight months, too, and the first baby was not born... . 
We had all believed that peace was in Mexico for good. 
Filadelfo saddled the burro, and we rode out through 
the streets just as light was coming, and into the fields 
where the farmers were not yet at work. And I said: 
‘Why must I come?’ And he answered: ‘Shall I starve, 
then? Who shall make my tortillas for me but my 
woman?’ It took us three months to get north, and 
I was sick and the baby was born in a desert just 


197 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


like this place, and died there because we could not 
get water. That was when Villa was going north after 
he had taken Torreon.” 

The old woman broke in: “Yes, and all that is true. 
When we go so far and suffer so much for our men, 
we are cruelly treated by the stupid animals of Gen- 
erals. I am from San Luis Potosi, and my man was 
in the artillery of the Federacion when Mercado came 
north. All the way to Chihuahua we traveled, the old 
fool of a Mercado grumbling about transporting the 
viejas. And then he ordered his army to go north 
and attack Villa in Juarez, and he forbade the women 
to go. Is that the way you are going to do, desgra- 
ciado? I said to myself. And when he evacuated Chi- 
huahua and ran away with my man to Ojinaga, I just 
stayed right in Chihuahua and got a man in the Ma- 
derista army when it came in. A nice handsome young 
fellow, too,—much better than Juan. I’m not a woman 
to stand being put upon.” 

“How much are the tortillas and coffee?” I asked. 

They looked at each other, startled. Evidently 
they had thought me one of the penniless soldiers 
crowded on the train. 

“What you would like,” said the young woman faint- 
ly. I gave them a peso. 

The old woman exploded in a torrent of prayer. 
““God, his sainted Mother, the Blessed Nifio and Our 
Lady of Guadelupe have sent this stranger to us to- 
night! Here we had not a centavo to buy coffee and 
Hour ‘with. / 47.” 

I suddenly noticed that the light of our fire had 


198 


AT THE GATES OF GOMEZ 


paled, and looked up in amazement to find it was dawn. 
Just then a man came running along the train from 
up front, shouting something unintelligible, while 
laughter and shouts burst out in his wake. The 
_ sleepers raised their curious heads and wanted to know 
what was the matter. In a moment our inanimate car 
was alive. The man passed, still yelling something 
about “padre,” his face exultant with some tremendous 
joke. 

“What is it?” I asked. 

“Oh!” cried the old woman. “His woman on the 
car ahead has just had a baby!” 

Just in front of us lay Bermejillo, its pink and blue 
and white plastered adobe houses as delicate and ethe- 
real as a village of porcelain. ‘To the east, across a 
still, dustless desert, a little file of sharp-cut horse- 
men, with a red-white-and-green flag over them, were 
riding into town.... 


CHAPTER V 


AT THE GATES OF GOMEZ 


E had taken Bermejillo the afternoon before, 

V\ —the army breaking into a furious gallop 
five kilometers north of the town and pour- 

ing through it at top speed, driving the unprepared 
garrison in a rout southward,—a running fight that 


lasted five miles, as far as the Hacienda of Santa Clara, 
—and killing a hundred and six colorados. Within a 


109 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


few hours afterward Urbina came in sight above Ma- 
pimi, and the eight hundred colorados there, informed 
of the astonishing news that the entire Constitution- 
alist army was flanking them on their right, evacuated 
the place, and fled hotly to Torreon. All over the 
country the astounded Federals were falling back in a 
panic upon the city. 

Late in the afternoon a dumpy little train came 


down the narrow-gauge track from the direction of — 


Mapimi, and from it proceeded the loud strains of a 
string orchestra of ten pieces playing “Recuerdos of 
Durango,’”—to which I had so often baile’d with the 
Tropa. The roofs, doors and windows were packed 
with Mexicans, singing and beating time with their 
heels, as they fired their rifles in a sort of salute upon 
entering the town. At the station this curious equi- 
page drew up, and from it proceeded—who but Pa- 
tricio, General Urbina’s fighting stage-driver at whose 
side I had so often ridden and danced! He threw his 
arms around me, yelling: “Juanito! Here is Juanito, 
mi General!” In a minute we were asking and an- 
swering each other a million questions. Did I have 
the photographs I took of him? Was I going to the 
battle of Torreon? Did he know where Don Petronilo 
was? And Pablo Seafies? And Raphaelito? And 
right in the midst of it somebody shouted “Viva Ur- 
bina!’ and the old General himself stood at the top 
of the steps,—the lion-hearted hero of Durango. He 
was lame, and leaned upon two soldiers. He held a 
rifle in his hand,—an old, discarded Springfield, with 
the sights filed down,—and wore a double cartridge- 


200 


AT THE GATES OF GOMEZ 


belt around his waist. For a moment he remained there, 
absolutely expressionless, his small, hard eyes boring 
into me. I thought he did not recognize me, when all 
at once his harsh, sudden voice shot out: ‘That’s not 
the camera you had! Where’s the other one?” 

I was about to reply when he interrupted: “TI know. 
You left it behind you in La Cadena. Did you run 
very fast?” 

“Yes, mit General.” 

“And you’ve come down to Torreon to run again?” 

“When I began to run from La Cadena,” I remarked, 
nettled, “Don Petronilo and the troops were already 
a mile away.” 

He didn’t answer, but came haltingly down the steps 
of the car, while a roar of laughter went up from the 
soldiers. Coming up to me he put a hand over my 
shoulder and gave me a little tap on the back. “I’m 
_ glad to see you, compaiiero,” he said. ... 

Across the desert the wounded had begun to strag- 
gle in from the battle of Tlahualilo to the hospital 
train, which lay far up near the front of the line of 
trains. On the flat barren plain, as far as I could 
see, there were only three living things in sight: a 
limping, hatless man, with his head tied up in a bloody 
cloth; another staggering beside his staggering horse; 
and a mule mounted by two bandaged figures far be- 
hind them. And in the still hot night we could hear 
from our car groans and screams... . 


Late Sunday morning we were again on “El Nifio” 
at the head of the repair train, moving slowly down 


201 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


the track abreast of the army. “El Chavalito,” an- 
other cannon mounted on a flat-car, was coupled 
behind, then came two armored cars, and the work- 
cars. This time there were no women. ‘The army 
wore a different air, winding along in two immense 
serpents each side of us—there was little laughter or 
shouting. We were close now, only eighteen miles from 
Gomez Palacio, and no one knew what the Federals 
planned to do. It seemed incredible that they would 
let us get so close without making one stand. Imme- 
diately south of Bermejillo we entered a new land. To 
the desert succeeded fields bordered with irrigation 
ditches, along which grew immense green alamos, tow- 
ering pillars of freshness after the baked desolation 
we had just passed through. Here were cotton-fields, 
the white tufts unpicked and rotting on their stalks; 
corn-fields with sparse green blades just showing. — 
Along the big ditches flowed swift, deep water in the © 
shade. Birds sang, and the barren western mountains 
marched steadily nearer as we went south. It was © 
summer—hot, moist summer, such as we have at home. 
A deserted cotton-gin lay on our left, hundreds of © 
white bales tumbled in the sun, and dazzling heaps of © 
cotton-seed left just as the workmen had piled it © 
months before... . ) 
At Santa Clara the massed columns of the army — 
halted and began to defile to left and right, thin lines t 
of troops jogging out under the checkered sun and ; 
shade of the great trees, until six thousand men were © 


spread in one long single front, to the right over fields — 
and through ditches, beyond the last cultivated field, © 


202 


AT THE GATES OF GOMEZ 


across the desert to the very base of the mountains; 
to the left over the roll of the flat world. The bugles 
blared faintly and near, and the army moved for- 
ward in a mighty line across the whole country. Above 
them lifted a five-mile-wide golden dust-glory. Flags 
flapped. In the center, level with them, came the 
cannon-car, and beside that Villa rode with his staff. 
At the little villages along the way the big-hatted, 
white-bloused pacificos stood in silent wonder, watch- 
ing this strange host pass. An old man drove his 
goats homeward. The foaming wave of troopers broke 
upon him, yelling with pure mischief, and all the goats 
ran in different directions. A mile of army shouted 
with laughter,—the dust rolled up from their thou- 
sand hoofs, and they passed. At the village of Brit- 
tingham the great line halted, while Villa and his staff 
galloped up to the peons watching from their little 
mound. 

“Oyez! said Villa. “Have any troops passed 
through here lately?” 

“$i, senior!” answered several men at once. “Some 
of Don Carlo Argumedo’s gente went by yesterday 
pretty fast.” 

“Hum,” Villa meditated. “Have you seen that ban- 
dit Pancho Villa around here?” 

“No, sefior!” they chorused. 

“Well, he’s the fellow I’m looking for. If I catch 
that diablo it will go hard with him!” 

“We wish you all success!’ cried the pacificos, po- 
litely. 

‘You never saw him, did you?” 

203 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“No, God forbid!’ they said fervently. 

‘Well!’ grinned Villa. ‘In the future when peo- 
ple ask if you know him you will have to admit the 
shameful fact! I am Pancho Villa!” And with that 
he spurred away, and all the army followed... . 


CHAPTER VI 


THE COMPANEROS REAPPEAR 


UCH had been the surprise of the Federals, and 
they had fled in such a hurry, that for many 
miles the railroad was intact. But toward after- 

noon we began to find little bridges burned and still — 
smoking, and telegraph poles cut down with an axe— — 
badly and hastily done bits of destruction that were 
easily repaired. But the army had got far ahead, 
and by nightfall, about eight miles from Gomez Pa- 
lacio, we reached the place where eight solid miles of 
torn-up track began. ‘There was no food on our train. 
We had only a blanket apiece; and it was cold. In the 
flare of torches and fires, the repair gang fell upon — 
their work. Shouts and hammering steel, and the thud 
of falling ties. ... It was a black night, with a 
few dim stars. We had settled down around one fire, 
talking and drowsing, when suddenly a new sound smote 
the air—a sound heavier than hammers, and deeper 
than the wind. It shocked—and was still. Then came 
a steady roll, as of distant drums, and then shock! 
shock! The hammers fell, voices were silent, we were 


204 


THE COMPANEROS REAPPEAR 


frozen. Somewhere ahead, out of sight, in the dark- 
ness—so still it was that the air carried every sound 
—Villa and the army had flung themselves upon Go- 
mez Palacio, and the battle had begun. It deepened 
steadily and slowly, until the booffs of cannon fell 
echoing upon each other, and the rifle fire rippled like 
steel rain. 

““Andale!’’ screamed a hoarse voice from the roof 
of the cannon-car. “What are you doing? Get at 
that track! Pancho Villa is waiting for the trains!” 

And, with a yell, four hundred raging maniacs flung 
themselves upon the break... . 

I remember how we besought the Colonel in com- 
mand to let us go to the front. He would not. Or- 
ders were strict that no one should leave the trains. 
We pled with him, offered him money, almost got on 
our knees to him. Finally he relented a little. 

*““At three o’clock,” he said, “Vl give you the sign 
and countersign and let you go.” 

We curled miserably about a little fire of our own, 
trying to sleep, trying at least to get warm. Around 
us and ahead the flares and the men danced along the 
ruined track; and every hour or so the train would 
creep forward a hundred feet and stop again. It was 
not hard to repair—the rails were intact. A wrecker 
had been hitched to the right-hand rail and the ties 
twisted, splintered, torn from their bed. Always the 
monotonous and disturbing furious sound of battle fil- 
tered out of the blackness ahead. It was so tiresome, 
so much the same, that sound; and yet I could not 
BICEP. 2s 


205 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


About midnight one of our outposts galloped from 
the rear of the trains to report that a large body of 
horsemen had been challenged coming from the north, 
who said they were Urbina’s gente from Mapimi. ‘The 
Colonel didn’t know of any body of troops that were 
to pass at that time of night. In a minute everything 
was a fury of preparation. ‘Twenty-five armed and 
mounted men galloped lke mad to the rear, with or- 
ders to stop the newcomers for fifteen minutes,—if 
they were Constitutionalists, by order of the Colonel; 
if not, by holding them off as long as possible. ‘The 
workmen were hurried back to the train and given their 
rifles. The fires were put out, the flares,—all but ten, 
—extinguished. Our guard of two hundred slipped 
silently into the thick brush, loading their rifles as 
they went. On either side of the track the Colonel and 
five of his men took up their posts, unarmed, with 
torches held high over their heads. And then, out of 
the thick blackness, the head of the column appeared. 
It was made up of different men from the well-clothed, 
well-equipped, well-fed soldiers of Villa’s army. ‘These 
were ragged, gaunt people, wrapped in faded, tattered 


serapes, without shoes on their feet, crowned with the © 


_ heavy, picturesque sombreros of the back-country. 
Lasso ropes hung coiled at their saddles. Their 


mounts were the lean, hard, half-savage ponies of the © 
Durango mountains. They rode sullenly, contempt- — 


uous of us. They neither knew the countersign nor 


cared to know it. And as they rode, whole files — 
sang the monotonous, extemporaneous ballads that the © 
peons compose and sing to themselves as they guard 


206 


pas 


ee ee ee 


THE COMPANEROS REAPPEAR 


the cattle at night on the great upland plains of the 
north, 

And, suddenly, as I stood at the head of the line 
of flares, a passing horse was jerked to his haunches, 
and a voice I knew cried: “Hey! Meester!” The en- 
folding serape was cast high in the air, the man fell 
from his horse, and in a moment I was clasped in the 
arms of Isidro Amaya. Behind him burst forth a 
chorus of shouts: “Que tal! Meester! O Juanito, how 
glad we are to see you! Where have you been? They 
said you were killed in La Cadena! Did you run fast 
from the colorados? Mucha susto, eh?” They threw 
themselves to the ground, clustering around, fifty men 
reaching at once to pat me on the back; all my dear- 
est friends in Mexico—the compaferos of La Tropa 
and the Cadena! 

The long file of men, blocked in the darkness, raised 
a chorus of shouts: “Move on! Vamonos! What’s 
the matter? Hurry up! We can’t stay here all 
night!” And the others yelled back: ‘“Here’s meester! 
Here’s the Gringo we were telling you about who 
danced the jota in La Zarca! Who was in La Ca- 
dena!” And then the others crowded forward too. 

There were twelve hundred of them. Silently, sul- 
lenly, eagerly, sniffing the battle ahead, they defiled 
between the double line of high-held torches. And 
every tenth man I had known before. As they passed 
the Colonel shouted to them: “What is the counter- 
sign? Turn your hats up in front! Do you know 
the countersign?” Hoarsely, exasperatedly, he bawled 


207 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


at them. Serenely and insolently they rode by, with- 


out paying the least attention to him. “To hell with | 


the countersign!” they hooted, laughing at him. “We 
don’t need any countersign! They’ll know well enough 
which side we’re on when we begin to fight!” 

For hours, it seemed, they jogged past, fading into 
the darkness, their horses with nervous heads turned 
to catch the sound of the guns, the men with glowing 
eyes fixed on the darkness ahead—rode into battle 
with their ancient Springfield rifles that had seen ser- 
vice for three years, with their meager ten rounds of 
ammunition. And when they had all gone the battle 
seemed to brighten and quicken with new life... . 


CHAPTER VII 


THE BLOODY DAWN 


HE steady noise of battle filled all the night. 

Ahead torches danced, rails clanged, sledges 

drummed on the spikes, the men of the repair 
gang shouted in the frenzy of their toil. It was after 
twelve. Since the trains had reached the beginning of 
the torn track we had made half a mile. Now and 
then a straggler from the main body came down the 
line of trains, shuffled into the light with his heavy 
Mauser awry across his shoulders, and faded into the 
darkness toward the debauch of sound in the direction 
of Gomez Palacio. The soldiers of our guard, squat- 
ting about their little fires in the fields, relaxed their 


208 


THE BLOODY DAWN 


tense expectancy; three of them were singing a little 
marching song, which began: 


I don’t want to be a Porfirista, 
I don’t want to be an Orozquista, 
But I want to be a volunteer in the army Maderista! 


Curious and excited, we hurried up and down the 
trains, asking people what they knew, what they 
thought. I had never heard a real killing-sound be- 
fore, and it made me frantic with curiosity and ner-. 
vousness. We were like dogs in a yard when a dog- 
fight is going on outside. Finally the spell snapped 
and I found myself desperately tired. I fell into a dead 
sleep on a little ledge under the lip of the cannon, 
where the laborers tossed their wrenches and sledge- 
hammers and crowbars when the train moved forward 
a hundred feet, and piled on themselves with shouts and 
horseplay. 

In the coldness of before dawn I woke with the 
Colonel’s hand on my shoulder. 

‘You can go now,” he said. ‘The sign is ‘Zaragosa’ 
and the countersign ‘Guerrero.’ Our soldiers will be 
recognized by their hats pinned up in front. May you 
go well!” 

It was bitter cold. We threw our blankets around 
us, serape fashion, and trudged down past the fury of 
the repair gang as they hammered at it under the leap- 
ing flares—past the five armed men slouching around 
their fire on the frontier of the dark. 

“Are you off to the battle, compafteros?” cried one 
of the gang. “Look out for the bullets!” At that 


209 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


they all laughed. The sentries cried, “Adios! Don’t 
kill them all! Leave a few pelones for us!” 

Beyond the last torch, where the torn track was 
wrenched and tumbled about on the uprooted roadbed, 
a shadowy figure waited for us. 

“Vamonos together,” he said, peering at us. “In 
the dark three are an army.” We stumbled along 
over the broken track, silently, just able to make him 
out with our eyes. He was a little dumpy soldier with 
a rifle and a half-empty cartridge-belt over his breast. 
He said that he had just brought a wounded man from 
the front to the hospital train and was on his way 
back. 

“Feel this,” he said, holding out his arm. It was 
drenched. We could see nothing. 

“Blood,” he continued unemotionally. ‘His blood. 
He was my compadre in the Brigada Gonzales-Ortega. 
_ We went in this night down there and so many, so 
many—— We were cut in half.” 

It was the first we had heard, or thought, of wounded 
men. All of a sudden we heard the battle. It had 
been going on steadily all the time, but we had for- 
gotten—the sound was so monstrous, so monotonous. 
Far rifle fire came like the ripping of strong canvas, 
the cannon shocked like pile-drivers. We were only 
six miles away now. 

Out of the darkness loomed a little knot of men— 
four of them—carrying something heavy and inert in 
a blanket slung between. Our guide threw up his rifle 
and challenged, and his answer was a retching groan 
from the blanket. 


210 


THE BLOODY DAWN 


“Oiga compadre,” lisped one of the bearers huskily. 
“Where, for the love of the Virgin, is the hospital 
train?” 

“About a league——” 

“Valgame Dios! How can we... .” 

“Water! Have you any water?” 

‘aney stood with the blanket taut between them, and 
something fell from it, drip, drip, drip, on the ties. 

That awful voice within screamed once, “To drink!” 
and fell away to a shuddering moan. We handed our 
canteens to the bearers—and silently, bestially, they 
drained them. ‘The wounded man they forgot. Then, 
sullen, they pitched on. . . 

Others appeared, singly, or in little groups. They 
were simply vague shapes staggering in the night, like 
drunkards, like men incredibly tired. One dragged be- 
tween two walkers, his arms around their shoulders. A 
mere boy reeled along with the limp body of his father 
on his back. A horse passed with his nose to the 
ground, two bodies flopping sideways across the sad- 
dle, and a man walking behind and beating the horse 
on the rump, cursing shrilly. He passed, and we could 
hear his falsetto fading dissonantly in the distance. 
Some groaned, with the ugly, deadened groan of ut- 
termost pain; one man, slouched in the saddle of a mule, 
screamed mechanically every time the mule took a 
step. Under two tall cotton-wood trees beside an ir- 
rigation ditch a little fire glowed. Three sleepers with 
empty cartridge-belts sprawled snoring on the uneven 
ground; beside the fire sat a man holding with both 
hands his leg straight out to the warmth. It was a 


211 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


perfectly good leg as far as the ankle—there it ended 
in a ragged, oozing mess of trousers and shattered 
flesh. The man simply sat looking at it. He didn’t 
even stir as we came near, and yet his chest rose and 


at ee 


fell with calm breathing, and his mouth was slightly 


open as if he were day-dreaming. By the side of the 


ditch knelt another. A soft lead bullet had entered | 
his hand between the two middle fingers and then spread | 


until it hollowed out a bloody cave inside. He had 


wrapped a rag around a little piece of stick and was 
unconcernedly dipping it in the water and gouging out — 


the wound. 


Soon we were near the battle. In the east, across — 
the vast level country, a faint gray light appeared. 


The noble alamo trees, towering thickly in massy lines 


along the ditches to the west, burst into showers of | 
bird-song. It was getting warm, and there came the 


tranquil smell of earth and grass and growing corn—a 
calm summer dawn. Into this the noise of battle broke | 


like something insane. The hysterical chatter of rifle 


fire, that seemed to carry a continuous undertone of — 


screaming—although when you listened for it it was 
gone. ‘The nervous, deadly stab—stab—stab—stab of 


the machine guns, like some gigantic woodpecker. The 


cannon booming like great bells, and the whistle of 
their shells. _Boom—Pi-i-i-e-e-a-uuu! And that most 
terrible of all the sounds of war, shrapnel exploding. 
Crash—Whee-e-eaaa!! 


The great hot sun swam up in the east through a 


faint smoke from the fertile land, and over the eastern — 
barrens the heat-waves began to wiggle. It caught the — 


212 


THE BLOODY DAWN 


startlingly green tops of the lofty alamos fringing the 
ditch that paralleled the railroad on our right. The 
trees ended there, and beyond, the whole rampart of 
bare mountains, piled range on range, grew rosy. We 
were now in scorched desert again, thickly covered with 
dusty mesquite. Except for another line of alamos 
straggling across from east to west, close to the city, 
there were no trees in all the plain but two or three 
scattered ones to the right. So close we were, 
barely two miles from Gomez Palacio, that we could 

—look down the torn track right into the town. We 
could see the black round water-tank, and back of that 
the roundhouse, and across the track from them both 
the low adobe walls of the Brittingham Corral. The 
smokestacks and buildings and trees of La Esperanza 
soap factory rose clear and still, like a little city, to 
the left. Almost directly to the right of the railroad 
track, it seemed, the stark, stony peak of the Cerro 
de la Pila mounted steeply to the stone reservoir that 
crowned it, and sloped off westward in a series of 
smaller peaks, a spiny ridge a mile long. Most of 
Gomez lay behind the shoulder of the Cerro, and at 
its western end the villas and gardens of Lerdo made 
a vivid patch of green in the desert. The great brown 
mountains on the west made a mighty sweep around 
behind the two cities, and then fell away south again 
in folds on folds of gaunt desolation. And directly 
south from Gomez, stretched along the base of this 
range, lay Torreon, the richest city of northern 
Mexico. 


213 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


The shooting never ceased, but it seemed to be sub- 
dued to a subordinate place in a fantastic and dis- 
ordered world. Up the track in the hot morning light 
straggled a river of wounded men, shattered, bleeding, 
bound up in rotting and bloody bandages, inconceiva- 
bly weary. They passed us, and one even fell and lay 
motionless nearby in the dust—and we didn’t care. 
Soldiers with their cartridges gone wandered aimlessly 


— 


out of the chaparral, dragging their rifles, and plunged | 


into the brush again on the other side of the railroad, 
black with powder, streaked with sweat, their eyes va- 
cantly on the ground. The thin, subtle dust rose in 
lazy clouds at every footstep, and hung there, parching 


throat and eyes. A little company of horsemen jogged — 


out of the thicket and drew up on the track, looking 
toward town. One man got down from his saddle and 
squatted beside us. 


“It was terrible,” he said suddenly. “Carramba! — 
We went in there last night on foot. They were in-~ 


side the water-tank, with holes cut in the iron for 
rifles. We had to walk up and poke our guns through ~ 
the holes and we killed them all—a death trap! And 


then the Corral! They had two sets of loopholes, one 


for the men kneeling down and the other for the men — 
standing up. Three thousand rurales in there—and 
they had five machine guns to sweep the road. And — 


the roundhouse, with three rows of trenches outside © 


and subterranean passages so they could crawl under 


and shoot us in the back. . . . Our bombs wouldn’t 
work, and what could we do with rifles? Madre de 


Dios! But we were so quick—we took them by sur- 
214 


x 


THE ARTILLERY COMES UP 


prise. We captured the roundhouse and the water- 
tank. And then this morning thousands came—thou- 
sands—reinforcements from Torreon—and their artil- 
lery—and they drove us back again. They walked up 
to the water-tank and poked their rifles through the 
holes and killed all of us—the sons of the devils!’ 

We could see the place as he spoke and hear the 
hellish roar and shriek, and yet no one moved, and 
there wasn’t a sign of the shooting—not even smoke, 
except when a shrapnel shell burst yelling down in the 
first row of trees a mile ahead and vomited a puff of 
white. The cracking rip of rifle fire and the staccato 
machine guns and even the hammering cannon didn’t 
reveal themselves at all. The flat, dusty plain, the 
trees and chimneys of Gomez, and the stony hill, lay 
quietly in the heat. From the alamos off to the right 
came the careless song of birds. One had the impres- 
sion that his senses were lying. It was an incredible 
dream, through which the grotesque procession of 
wounded filtered like ghosts in the dust. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE ARTILLERY COMES UP 


VER to the right, along the base of the line 

of trees, heavy dust billowed up, men shouted, 

whips snapped, and there was a rumble and a 
jangling of chains. We plunged into a little path that 
wound among the chaparral and emerged upon a tiny 


215 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


village, lost in the brush near the ditch. It was strik- 
ingly like a Chinese or Central American village: five 
or six adobe huts thatched with mud and twigs. It 
was called San Ramon, and there a little struggling 
knot of men swayed about every door, clamoring for 
coffee and tortillas, and waving fiat money. The pa- 
cificos squatted in their tiny corrals, selling macuche 
at exorbitant prices; their women sweated over the 
fire, hammering tortillas and pouring villainous black 
coffee. All around, in the open spaces, lay sleepers 
like the dead, and men with bloody arms and heads, 
tossing and groaning. Presently an officer galloped up, 
streaked with sweat, and screamed, “‘Get up, you fools! 
Pendecos! Wake up and get back to your companies! 
We’re going to attack!” <A few stirred and stumbled, 
cursing, to their weary feet—the others still slept. 
“Hijos de la snapped the officer, and spurred 
his horse upon them, trampling, kicking. ... The 


ground boiled men scrambling out of the way and yell- 
ing. They yawned, stretched, still half asleep, and 
sifted off slowly toward the front in an aimless way. 
. . . The wounded only dragged themselves listlessly 
to the shade of the brush. 

Along the side of the ditch went a sort of wagon 
track, and up this the Constitutionalist artillery were 


arriving. One could see the gray heads of the strain- 


ing mules, and the big hats of their drivers, and the 
circling whips—the rest was masked in dust. Slower 


than the army, they had been marching all night. Past 


us rumbled the carriages and caissons, the long, heavy 


guns yellow with dust. The drivers and gunners were 
216 


u 


. 


; 


THE ARTILLERY COMES UP 


in fine good humor. One, an American, whose features 
were absolutely indistinguishable in the all-mantling 
mud of sweat and earth, shouted to know if they were 
in time, or if the town had fallen. 

I answered in Spanish that there were lots of colora- 
dos yet to kill, and a cheer ran along the line. 

“Now we'll show them something,” cried a big In- 
dian on a mule. “If we could get into their cursed 
town without guns, what can we do with them?” 

The alamos ended just beyond San Ramon, and un- 
der the last trees Villa, General Angeles, and the staff 
sat on horseback at the bank of the ditch. Beyond 
that the ditch ran naked across the naked plain into 
the town, where it took water from the river. Villa 
was dressed in an old brown suit, without a collar, and 
an ancient felt hat. He was covered with dirt, and 
had been riding up and down the lines all night; but 
he bore no trace of fatigue. 

When he saw us he called out, “Hello, muchachos! 
Well, how do you like it?” 

“Fine, mt General!” 

We were worn out and very dirty. The sight of 
us amused him profoundly; he never could take the 
correspondents seriously, anyway, and it seemed to 
him very droll that an American periodical would 
be willing to spend so much money just to get the 
news. 

“Good,” he said with a grin. “I’m glad you like 
it, because you’re going to get all you want.” 

The first gun had now come opposite the staff and 
unlimbered, the gunners ripping off the canvas covers 


Q17 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


and tilting up the heavy caisson. The captain of the 
battery screwed on the telescopic sight and the crank | 
of the raising-lever spun. The brass butts of heavy 
shells shone in gleaming rows; two men staggered 
under the weight of one, and rested it on the ground 
while the captain regulated the shrapnel timer. The 
breech-lock crashed shut, and we ran far back. Cra- 
boom-shock! A soaring whistling Pi-i-1-e-e-eeuu! flew 
high after the shell, and then a tiny white smoke flow- 
ered at the foot of the Cerro de la Pila—and, minutes 
after, a far detonation. About a hundred yards apart, 
all along in front of the gun, picturesque ragged men 
stared motionless through their field-glasses. They 
burst into a chorus of yells, ““Too low! Too far to the 
right! Their guns are all along the ridge! Time it 
about fifteen seconds later!’ Down front the rifle fire 
had frittered away to ragged sputtering and the ma- 
chine guns were silent. Everybody was watching the 
artillery duel. It was about five-thirty in the morning, 
and already very hot. In the fields behind sounded the 
parched chirp of crickets; the lofty fresh tops of the 
alamos rustled in a high languid breeze; birds began 
to sing again. 

Another gun wheeled into line, and the breech-block 
of the first clacked again. ‘There came the snap of 
the trigger, but no roar. The gunners wrenched open 
the breech and hurled the smoking brass projectile on 
the grass. Bad shell. I saw General Angeles in his 
faded brown sweater, hatless, peering through the sight 
and cranking up the range. Villa was spurring his re- 
luctant horse up to the caisson. Cra—boom—shock! 


218 


THE ARTILLERY COMES UP, 


Pi-i-i-e-e-eeuu! The other gun this time. We saw the 
shell burst higher up the stony hill this time. And then 
four booms floated to us, and, simultaneously, the en- 
emy’s shells, which had been exploding desultorily over 
the line of trees nearest the city, marched out into the 
open desert and leaped toward us in four tremendous 
explosions, each nearer. More guns had wheeled into. 
line; others filed off to the right along a diagonal 
of trees, and a long line of heavy trucks, plunging 
mules, and cursing, shouting men choked up the 
dusty road to the rear. The unlimbered mules jingled 
back and the drivers threw themselves, exhausted, under 
the nearest chaparral. 

The Federal shrapnel, well fired and excellently 
timed, was bursting now only a few hundred yards in 
front of our line, and the minute boom of their guns 
was almost incessant. Crash—Wheeeeaa! Over our 
heads, snapping viciously in the leafy trees, sang the 
rain of lead. Our guns replied spasmodically. The 


home-made shells, fashioned on converted mining ma- 


_chinery in Chihuahua, were not reliable. Galloped past 


_ stout Captain Marinelli, the Italian soldier of fortune, 


_steering as near the newspapermen as possible, with a 


- 
' 


; 


serious, Napoleonic look on his face. He glanced once 
or twice at the camera man, smiling graciously, but the 


latter coldly looked away. With a workmanlike flour- 


ish he ordered the wheeling of his gun into position 
and sighted it himself. Just then a shell burst deaf- 
eningly about a hundred yards in front. The Federals 
were getting the range. Marinelli bounded away from 
his cannon, mounted his horse, limbered up and came 


219 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


galloping dramatically back with his gun rumbling 
along at a dead run behind. None of the other guns © 
had retreated. Pulling up his foaming charger in front 
of the camera man, he flung himself to the ground and 
took a position. 

“Now,” he said, “you can take my picture!’ | 

“Go to hell,” said the camera man, and a great shout — 
of laughter went up along the line. 

The high cracked note of a bugle thrilled through © 
the racking roar. Immediately mules dragging their — 
jangling limbers appeared, and shouting men. The | 
caissons snapped shut. 

“Going down front,” shouted Colonel Servin. “Not 
hitting. Too far away here... .” 

And the long-halted line snapped taut and wound 
out into the open desert, under the bursting shells. 


CHAPTER IX 


BATTLE 


Ww returned along the winding path through — 


the mesquite, crossed the torn-up track, and ~ 


struck out across the dusty plain southeast- — 
ward. Looking back along the railroad I could sce 
smoke and the round front of the first train miles 
away; and in front of it throngs of active little dots 
swarming on the right of way, distorted like things seen _ 
in a wavy mirror. We strode along in a haze of thin 
dust. The giant mesquite dwindled until it scarcely 
220 | 


BATTLE 


reached to our knees. To the right the tall hill and 
the chimneys of the town swam tranquilly in the hot 
sun; rifle fire had almost ceased for the moment, and 
only dazzling bursts of thick white smoke marked our 
occasional shells alorg the ridge. We could see our 
drab guns rocking down the plain, spreading along the 
first line of alamos, where the searching fingers of the 
enemy’s shrapnel probed continually. Little bodies of 
horsemen moved here and there over the desert, and 
stragglers on foot, trailing their rifles. 

An old peon, stooped with age and dressed in rags, 
crouched in the low shrub gathering mesquite twigs. 

“Say, friend,” we asked him, “is there any way we 
can get in close to see the fighting?” 

He straightened up and stared at us. 

“If you had been here as long as I have,’’ said he, 
“you wouldn’t care about seeing the fighting. Car- 
ramba! I have seen them take Torreon seven times in 
three years. Sometimes they attack from Gomez Pa- 
lacio and sometimes from the mountains. But it is al- 
ways the same—war. There is something interesting in 
it for the young, but for us old people, we are tired 
of war.” He paused and stared out over the plain. 
“Do you see this dry ditch? Well, if you will get 
down in it and follow along it will lead you into the 
town.” And then, as an afterthought, he added in- 
curiously, “What party do you belong to?” 

“The Constitutionalists.” 

“So. First it was the Maderistas, and then the 
Orozquistas, and now the—what did you call them? 
I am very old, and I have not long to live; but this 


Q21 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


war—it seems to me that all it accomplishes is to let 
us go hungry. Go with God, sefiores.” And he bent 

again to his slow task, while we descended into the 

arroyo. It was a disused irrigation ditch running a 

little south of west, its bottom covered with dusty 
weeds, and the end of its straight length hidden from 

us by a sort of mirage that looked like a glaring pool — 
of water. Stooped a little, so as to be hidden from the. 
outside, we walked along, it seemed, for hours, the 

cracked bottom and dusty sides of the ditch reflecting 

the fierce heat upon us until we were faint with it. 

Once horsemen passed quite near on our right, their 

big iron spurs ringing; we crouched down until they 
passed, for we didn’t want to take any chances. Down 
in the ditch the artillery fire sounded very faint and ~ 
far away, but once I cautiously lifted my head above — 
the bank and discovered that we were very near the 
first line of trees. Shells were bursting along it, and 
I could even see the belch of furious haze hurling out — 
from the mouths of our cannon, and feel the surf of : 
sound-waves hit me like a blow when they fired. We 
were a good quarter of a mile in front of our artil-_ 
lery, and evidently making for the water-tank on the | 
very edge of the town. As we stooped again the shells 
passing overhead whined sharply and suddenly across 
the are of sky and were cut off abruptly until the sul- | 
len echoless booff! of their explosion. There ahead, — 
where the railroad trestle of the main line crossed the ' 
arroyo, huddled a little pile of bodies—evidently left 
from the first attack. Hardly one was bloody; their { 
heads and hearts were pierced with the clean, tiny holes 


222 


BATTLE 


of steel Mauser bullets. They lay limply, with the un- 
earthly calm, lean faces of the dead. Someone, per- 
haps their own thrifty compaferos, had stripped them 
of arms, shoes, hats and serviceable clothing. One 
sleeping soldier, squatting on the edge of the heap with 
his rifle across his knees, snored deeply. Flies cov- 
ered him—the dead hummed with them. But the sun 
had not yet affected them. Another soldier leaned 
against the townward bank of the ditch, his feet rest- 
ing on a corpse, banging methodically away at some- 
thing he saw. Under the shadow of the trestle four 
men sat playing cards. They played listlessly, with- 
out talking, their eyes red with lack of sleep. The heat 
was frightful. Occasionally a stray bullet came by 
screaming, “‘Where—is-s-s-z—ye!” This strange com- 
pany took our appearance as a matter of course. The 
sharpshooter doubled up out of range and carefully 
put another cartridge-clip in his rifle. 

“You haven’t got another drop of water in that can- | 
teen, have you?” he asked. “Adio! we haven’t eaten 
or drunk since yesterday!’ He guzzled the water, 
furtively watching the card players lest they, too, 
should be thirsty. “They say that we are to attack the 
water-tank and the Corral again when the artillery is 
in position to support us. Chi-huahua hombre! but it 
was duro in the night! They slaughtered us in the 
streets there. . . .”?. He wiped his mouth on the back 
of his hand and began firing again. We lay beside him 
and looked over. We were about two hundred yards 
from the deadly water-tank. Across the track and the 
wide street beyond lay the brown mud-walls of the 


223 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Brittingham Corral, innocent looking enough now, with 
only black dots to show the double line of loop-holes. 
“There are the machine guns,” said our friend. ‘See 


— . 


them, those slim barrels peeping over the edge?” We | 


couldn’t make them out. Water-tank, Corral and town 
lay sleeping in the heat. Dust hovered still in the air, 
making a thin haze. About fifty yards in front of us 
was a shallow exposed ditch, evidently once a Federal 


trench, for the dirt had been piled on our side. Two — 


hundred drab, dusty soldiers lay in it now, facing 
townward—the Constitutionalist infantry. They were 


sprawled on the ground, in all attitudes of weariness; — 


some sleeping on their backs, facing up to the hot sun; — 


others wearily transferring the dirt with their scooped 


hands from rear to front. Before them they had piled — 


up irregular heaps of rocks. Now infantry, in the 


Constitutionalist army, is simply cavalry without — 


horses; all Villa’s soldiers are mounted except the ar- — 


tillery, and those for whom horses cannot be procured. 


Of a sudden the artillery in our rear boomed all to- — 
gether, and over our heads a dozen shells screamed to- © 


ward the Cerro. 
“That is the signal,” said the man at our side. He 


clambered down into the ditch and kicked the sleeper. © 
“Come on,” he yelled. “Wake up. We're going to 


attack the pelones.”” The snorer groaned and opened 


{ 


his eyes slowly. He yawned and picked up his rifle 
without a word. The card players began to squabble — 
about their winnings. A violent dispute broke out as . 
to who owned the pack of cards. Grumbling and still 


224 


BATTLE 


arguing, they stumbled out and followed the sharp- 
shooter up over the edge of the ditch. 

Rifle fire rang along the edge of the trench in front. 
The sleepers flopped over on their stomachs behind 
their little shelters—their elbows worked vigorously 
pumping the guns. The hollow steel water-tank re- 
sounded to the rain of thumping bullets; chips of adobe 
flew from the wall of the Corral. Instantly the wall 
bristled with shining barrels and the two awoke crack- 
ling with hidden vicious firing. Bullets roofed the 
heavens with whistling steel—drummed the smoking 
dust up until a yellow curtain of whirling cloud veiled 
us from the houses and the tank. We could see our 
friend running low along the ground, the sleepy man 
following, standing erect, still rubbing his eyes. Be- 
hind strung out the gamblers, squabbling yet. Some- 
where in the rear a bugle blew. The sharpshooter run- 
ning in front stopped suddenly, swaying, as if he had 
run against a solid wall. His left leg doubled under 
him and he sank crazily to one knee in the exposed flat, 
whipping up his rifle with a yell. 


6¢ 


the dirty monkeys!” he screamed, firing 
rapidly into the dust. “Tl show the ! The 
cropped heads! The jail-birds!’ He shook his head 
impatiently, like a dog with a hurt ear. Blood drops 
flew from it. Bellowing with rage, he shot the rest of 
his clip, and then slumped to the ground and thrashed 
to and fro for a minute. The others passed him with 
scarcely a look. Now the trench was boiling with men 


scrambling to their feet, like worms.when you turn 
over alog. The rifle fire rattled shrilly. From behind 


225 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


us came running feet, and men in sandals, with blankets 
over their shoulders, came falling and slipping down 
the ditch, and scrambling up the other side—hundreds 
of them, it seemed... . 

They almost hid from us the front, but through the 
dust and the spaces between running logs we could see 
the soldiers in the trench leap their barricade like a 
breaking wave. And then the impenetrable dust shut — 
down and the fierce stabbing needle of the machine 
guns sewed the mighty jumble of sounds together. <A 
glimpse through a rift in the cloud torn by a sudden 
hot gust of wind—we could see the first brown line of 
men reeling altogether like drunkards, and the machine 
guns over the wall spitting sharp, dull red in the sun- — 
shine. Then a man came running back out of it, the 
sweat streaming down his face, without a gun. He 
ran fast, half sliding, half falling, down into our ditch 
and up the other side. Other dim forms loomed up in 
the dust ahead. 

“What is it? How is it going?” I cried. 

He answered nothing, but ran on. Suddenly and 
terribly the monstrous crash and scream of shrapnel 
burst from the turmoil ahead. ‘The enemy’s artillery! 
Mechanically I listened for our guns, Except for an ~ 
occasional boom they were silent. Our home-made — 
shells were failing again. Two more shrapnel shells. _ 
Out of the dust-cloud men came running back—-singly, — 
in pairs, in groups, a stampeding mob. They fell over 
us, around us—drowned us in a human flood, shouting — 
“To the alamos! 'To the trains! The Federation is — 
coming!’ We struggled up among them and ran, too, © 


226 


BATTLE 


straight up the railroad track. . . . Behind us roared 
the shells searching in the dust, and the tearing mus- 
ketry. And then we noticed that all the wide roadway 
ahead was filled with galloping horsemen, yelling shrill 
Indian cries and waving their rifles—the main column! 
We stood to one side as they whirled past, about five 
hundred of them—watched them stoop in their saddles 
and begin to shoot. The drumming of their horses’ 
hoofs was like thunder. 

“Better not go in there! It’s too hot!” cried one 
of the infantry with a grin. 

“Well, Pll bet I’m hotter,” answered a horseman, 
and we all laughed. We walked tranquilly back along 
the railroad track, while the firing behind wound up to 
a continuous roar. A group of peons—pacificos—in 
tall sombreros, blankets and white cotton blouses, stood 
along here with folded arms, looking down the track 
toward town. 

“Look out there, friends,” joshed a soldier. ‘‘Don’t 
stand there. You'll get hit.” 

The peons looked at each other and grinned feebly. 
“But, sefior,” said one, “this is where we always stand 
when there is a battle.” 

A little farther along I came upon an officer—a Ger- 
man—wandering along, leading his horse by the bridle. 
“T cannot ride him any more,” he said to me earnestly. 
“He is quite too tired. JI am afraid he will die if he does 
not sleep.” The horse, a big chestnut stallion, stumbled 
and swayed as he walked. Enormous tears trickled 
from his half-shut eyes and rolled down his nose... . 

I was dead tired, reeling from lack of sleep and food 


227 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


and the terrible heat of the sun. About half a mile out 
I looked back and saw the enemy’s shrapnel poking 
into the line of trees more frequently than ever. They 
seemed to have thoroughly got the range. And just 
then I saw the gray line of guns, limbered to their 
mules, begin to crawl out from the trees toward the rear 
at four or five different points. Our artillery had been 
shelled out of their positions. ...I threw myself | 
down to rest in the shade of a big mesquite bush. 
Almost immediately a change seemed to come in the 
sound of the rifle fire, as if half of it had been suddenly 
cut off. At the same time twenty bugles shrilled. Ris- 
ing, I noticed a line of running horsemen fleeing up the 
track, shouting something. More followed, galloping, | 
at the place where the railroad passed beyond the 
trees on its way into town. The cavalry had been re- 
pulsed. All at once the whole plain squirmed with men, 
mounted and on foot, all running rearward. One man 
threw away his blanket, another his rifle. They thick- 
ened over the hot desert, stamping up the dust, until 
the flat was crowded with them. Right in front of me 
a horseman burst out of the brush, shouting, “The Fed- 
erals are coming! To the trains! They are right be- 
hind!” The entire Constitutionalist army was routed! 
I caught up my blanket and took to my heels. A little 
way farther on I came upon a cannon abandoned in 
the desert, traces cut, mules gone. Underfoot were 
guns, cartridge-belts and dozens of serapes. It was a 
rout. Coming to an open space, I saw ahead a large 
crowd of fleeing soldiers, without rifles. Suddenly 
three men on horseback swept across in front of them, 


228 


BETWEEN ATTACKS 


waving their arms and yelling. “Go back!” they cried. 
“They aren’t coming out! Go back for the love of 
God!” ‘Two I didn’t recognize. The other was Villa. 


CHAPTER X 
BETWEEN ATTACKS 


BOUT a mile back the flight was stopped. I met. 
the soldiers coming back, with the relieved ex- 
pression of men who have feared an unknown 

danger and been suddenly set free from it. That was 
always Villa’s power—he could explain things to the 
great mass of ordinary people in a way that they im- 
mediately understood. The Federals, as usual, had 
failed to take advantage of their opportunity to inflict 
a lasting defeat upon the Constitutionalists. Perhaps 
they feared an ambush like the one Villa had arranged 
at Mapula, when the victorious Federals sallied out to 
pursue Villa’s fleeing army after the first attack on 
Chihuahua, and were repulsed with heavy slaughter. 
Anyway, they did not come out. The men came 
straggling back, hunting in the mesquite for their guns 
and blankets, and for other people’s guns and blankets. 
You could hear them shouting and joking all over the 
plain. “Oija! Where are you going with that rifle? 
That’s my water-bag! I dropped my serape right here 
by this bush, and now it’s gone!” 

“OQ Juan,” cried one man to another, “I always told 
you I could beat you running!” 


229 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“But you didn’t, compadre. I was a hundred meters 
ahead, flying through the air like a cannon ball! .. .” 

The truth was that after riding twelve hours the day 
before, fighting all night, and all morning in the 
blazing sun, under the frightful strain of charging an 
intrenched force in the face of artillery and machine 
guns, without food, water or sleep, the army’s nerve 
had suddenly given way. But from the time that they 
returned after the flight the ultimate result was never 
in doubt. The psychological crisis was past... . 

Now the rifle fire had altogether ceased, and even 
cannon shots from the enemy were few and far between. 
At the ditch under the first line of trees our men en- 
trenched themselves; the artillery had withdrawn to 
the second line of trees—a mile back; and under the 
grateful shade the men threw themselves heavily 
down and slept. The strain had snapped. As 
the sun rose toward noon the desert, hill and town 
throbbed silently in the intense heat. Sometimes an 
exchange of shots far to the right or left told where the’ 
outposts were exchanging compliments. But even that 
soon stopped. In the cotton and cornfields to the 
north, among the sprouting green things, insects 
chirped. ‘The birds sang no more because of the heat. 
It was breathless. The leaves stirred in no wind. 

Here and there little fires smoked, where the soldiers” 
rolled tortillas from the scanty flour they had brought 
in their saddle-bags—and those who didn’t have any 
swarmed around, begging a crumb. Everybody simply 
and generously divided the food. I was hailed from a 
dozen fires with “Hey, companero, have you break- 


230 


BETWEEN ATTACKS 


fasted? Here is a piece of my tortilla. Come and eat!” 
Rows of men lay flat on their stomachs along the irri- 
gation ditch, scooping up the dirty water in their 
palms. Three or four miles back we could see the can- 
non-car and the first two trains, opposite the big ranch 
of El Verjel, with the tireless repair gang hard at it 
in the hot sun. The provision train had not come up 
WET. . se 

Little Colonel Servin came by, perched on an im- 
mense bay horse, still dapper and fresh after the terri- 
ble work of the night. 

“IT don’t know what we shall do yet,” he said. “Only 
the General knows that, and he never tells. But we 
shall not assault again until the Brigada Zaragosa re- 
turns. Benavides has had a hard battle over there at 
Sacramento—two hundred and fifty of ours killed, they 
say. And the General has sent for General Robles and 
General Contreras, who have been attacking from the 
south, to bring up all their men and join him here. .. . 
They say, though, that we are going to deliver a night 
attack next, so that their artillery won’t be effective. 

.’ He galloped on. 

About midday thin columns of sluggish, dirty smoke 
began to rise from several points in the town, and to- 
ward afternoon a slow, hot wind brought to us the 
faintly sickening smell of crude oil mingled with 
scorched human flesh. The Federals were burning piles 
of the dead... . 

We walked back to the trains and stormed General 
Benavides’ private car in the Brigada Zaragosa train. 
The major in charge had them cook us something to 


231 


: See 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


eat in the General’s kitchen. We ate ravenously, and 
afterward went over along the line of trees and slept 
for hours. Late in the afternoon we started once more 
for the front. Hundreds of soldiers and peons of the 
neighborhood, ravenously hungry, prowled around the 
trains, hoping to pick up discarded food, or slops, or 
anything at all to eat. ‘They were ashamed of them- 
selves, however, and affected a sauntering indolence 


when we passed. I remember that we sat for a while 


talking with some soldiers on the top of a box-car, 
when a boy, criss-crossed with cartridge-belts and lug- 
ging a huge rifle, came past beneath, his eyes searching 
the ground. A stale tortilla, half rotting, crunched 
into the dirt by many passing feet, caught his atten- 
tion. He pounced upon it and bit a piece out. Then 
he looked up and saw us. “As if I were dying of hun- 
ger!’ he said scornfully and tossed it away with con- 
LEME. 


Down in the shade of the alamos, across the ditch 
from San Ramon, the Canadian Captain Treston was 


bivouacked with his machine gun battery. The guns 


and their heavy tripods were unloaded from the mules, — 


and all around lay the unlimbered field-pieces, their 


animals grazing in the rich green fields, the men squat+ 


ted around their fires or lying stretched out on 
the bank of the ditch. Treston waved an ashy, 


tortilla he was munching and bawled, “Say, Reed! 


Please come here and interpret for me! I can’t find my 
interpreters, and if we go into action I'll be in a hell 


of a fix! You see I don’t know the damn language, and | 


232 


BETWEEN ATTACKS 


when I came down here Villa hired two interpreters to 
go around with me all the time. And I can’t ever 
find the sons-of-guns; they always go off and leave me 
in a hole!” 

I took part of the proffered delicacy and asked him 
if he thought there was any chance of going into action. 

“T think we’ll go in to-night as soon as it’s dark,” 
he answered. “Do you want to go along with the ma- 
chine guns and interpret?” I said I did. 

A ragged man near the fire, whom I had never seen 
before, rose and came across smiling. 

“YT thought when I looked at you that you seemed to 
be an hombre who hadn’t tasted tobacco for a while. 
Will you take half my cigarette?” Before I could pro- 
test he produced a lop-sided brown cigarette and tore 
it across in two pieces... . 

The sun went gloriously down behind the notched 
purple mountains in front of us, and for a minute a 
clear fan of quivering light poured up the high arc of 
stainless sky. The birds awoke in the trees; leaves 
rustled. The fertile land exhaled a pearly mist. A 
dozen ragged soldiers, lying close together, began to 
improvise the air and words of a song about the battle 
of Torreon—a new ballad was being born. . . . Other 
| singing came to us through the still, cool dusk. I felt 
| my whole feeling going out to these gentle, simple peo- 
_ ple—so lovable they were... . 

It was just after I had been to the ditch for a drink 
that Treston said casually: “By the way, one of our 
men found this floating in the ditch a little while ago. 
I can’t read Spanish, so I didn’t know what the word 


233 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


meant. You see the water from these ditches all comes 
from the river inside the town, so I thought it might be 
a Federal paper.” I took it from his hand. It was a 
little folded white piece of wet paper, like the corner 
and front of a package. In large black letters was 
printed on the front, “ARSENICO,” and in smaller 
type, ‘““Cuidado! Veneno!” “Arsenic. Beware! Poison!” 

‘Look here,” I demanded, sitting up suddenly. ‘“‘Have 
there been any sick people around here this evening?” 

“That’s funny you’re asking,” he said. “A good 
many of the men have had bad cramps in the stomach, 
and I don’t feel altogether well. Just before you came 
a mule suddenly keeled over and died in that next field, | 
and a horse across the ditch. Fatigue or sunstroke, 
probably. .. .” 

Fortunately the ditch carried a large body of swiftly 
running water, so the danger was not great. I ex- 
plained to him that the Federals had poisoned the 
ditch. 

“My God,” said Treston. ‘‘Perhaps that is what 
they were trying to tell me. About twenty people have 
come up to me and said something about envenenado. 
What does that mean?” 

“That’s what it means,” I answered. “Where can 
we get about a quart of strong coffee?” We found a 
great can of it at the nearest fire and felt better. 

“OQ yes, we knew,” said the men. “That is why we 
watered the animals at the other ditch. We heard long 
ago. ‘They say that ten horses are dead down in front, 
and that many men are rolling very sick on the 
ground.” 


234 


BETWEEN ATTACKS 


An officer on horseback rode by, shouting that 
we were all to go back to El Verjel and camp there 
beside the trains for the night; that the general had 
said that everyone but the advance guards were to get 
a good night’s sleep out of the zone of fire, and that 
the commissary train had come up and was just behind 
the hospital train. Bugles sounded, and the men strug- 
gled up off the ground, catching mules, fastening their 
harness on amid shouting and braying and jingling, 
saddling horses and limbering guns. Treston got on his 
pony and I walked along beside him. So there was to 
be no night attack then. It was now almost dark. 
Across the ditch we fell in with the shadowy forms of a 
company of soldiers trotting northward, all muffling 
blankets and big hats and ringing spurs. They hailed 
me. “Hey, compafero, where’s your horse?” I admit- 
ted I had none. “Jump up behind me then,” chimed 
in five or six altogether. One pulled up right beside 
me and I mounted with him. We jogged on through 
the mesquite and across a dim, lovely field. Someone 
began to sing and two more joined in. A round, full 
moon bubbled up in the clear night. 

“Oiga, how do you say ‘mula’ in English?” asked my 
horseman. 

. d stubborn-fathead-mule,” I told him. 
And for days after entire strangers would stop me and 
ask me, with roars of laughter, how the Americans said 


emule.” . . . 
Around the ranch of El Verjel the army was en- 


camped. We rode into a field dotted with fires, where 


aimless soldiers wandered around in the dark, shouting 


235 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


to know where the Brigada Gonzales-Ortega was, or’ 


Jose Rodriguez’s gente, or the amitrailladoras. Town- 
ward the artillery was unlimbering in a wide, alert half- 
circle, guns pointing south. ‘To the east, the camp of 
Benavides’ Brigada Zaragosa, just arrived from Sacra- 
mento, made an immense glow in the sky. From the 
direction of the provision train a long ant-lke file of 
men bore sacks of flour, coffee, and packages of ciga- 
rettes.... A hundred different singing choruses 
swelled up into the night... . 

It comes to my mind with particular vividness how I 
saw a poor poisoned horse suddenly double up and fall, 
thrashing; how we passed a man bent to the ground in 


the darkness, vomiting violently; how, after I had 


rolled up on the ground in my blankets, terrible cramps 
suddenly wrenched me, and I crawled out a way into 


the brush and didn’t have the strength to crawl back. © 
In fact, until gray dawn, I “rolled very sick on the 


ground.” 
CHAPTER XI 
AN OUTPOST IN ACTION 


UESDAY, early in the morning, the army was in 


motion again toward the front, straggling — 


down the track and across the field. Four hun- — 


dred raging demons sweated and hammered at the 
ruined track; the foremost train had made half a mile 


in the night. Horses were plenty that morning, and I 


a : = 


bought one, saddle. and all, for seventy-five pesos—_ 


236 


AN OUTPOST IN ACTION 


about fifteen dollars in gold. Trotting down by San 
Ramon, I fell in with two wild-looking horsemen, in 
high sombreros, with little printed pictures of Our 
Lady of Guadelupe sewed on the crowns. They said 
they were going out to an outpost upon the extreme 
right wing, near the mountains above Lerdo, where 
their company was posted to hold a hill. Why should 
I want to come with them? Who was I, anyway? I 
showed them my pass, signed by Francisco Villa. They 
were still hostile. ‘Francisco Villa is nothing to us,’ 
they said. “And how do we know whether this is his 
name, written by him? We are of the Brigada Juarez, 
_ Calixto Contreras’ gente.” But after a short consulta- 
tion the taller grunted, “Come.” 

We left the protection of the trees, striking out 
diagonally across the ramparted cotton-fields, due west, 
straight for a steep, high hill that already quivered in 
the heat. Between us and the suburbs of Gomez Pala- 
cio stretched a barren, flat plain, covered with low 
mesquite and cut by dry irrigation ditches. The Cerro 
de la Pila, with its murderous concealed artillery, lay 
perfectly quiet, except that up one side of it, so clear 
was the air, we could make out a little knot of figures 
dragging what looked like a cannon. Just outside of 
the nearest houses some horsemen were riding around ; 
we immediately struck north, making a wide détour, 
carefully on the watch, for this intermediate ground 
was overrun by pickets and scouting parties. About a 
mile beyond, almost along the foot of the hill, ran the 
high road from the north to Lerdo. We reconnoitered 
this carefully from the brush. A peasant passed whist- 


237 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


ling, driving a flock of goats. On the very edge of this — 


road, under a bush, was an earthen jar full of milk. 


Without the least hesitation the first soldier drew his 


revolver and shot. The jar split into a hundred pieces 
—milk spurting everywhere. 

“Poisoned,” he said briefly. ‘The first company sta- 
tioned over here drank some of that stuff. Four died.” 
We rode on. 


Up on the hill crest a few black figures squatted, 


their rifles tilted against their knees. My companions 
waved to them, and we turned north along the bank of 
a little river that unrolled a narrow strip of green grass 
in the midst of desolation. The outpost was camped on 
both sides of the water, in a sort of meadow. I asked 
where the colonel was, and finally found him stretched 
out in the shade of a tent that he had made by hanging 
his serape over a bush. 

“Get down from your horse, friend,” he said. “I am 
glad to welcome you here. My house” (pointing quiz- 


zically to the roof of his tent) “is at your disposal. © 


Here are cigarettes. ‘There is meat cooking on the 
fire.’ Upon the meadow, fully saddled, grazed the 
horses of the troop, about fifty of them. The men 
sprawled on the grass in the shade of the mesquite, 
chatting and playing cards. This was a different breed 
of men from the well-armed, well-mounted, compara- 
tively disciplined troops of Villa’s army. ‘They were 
simply peons who had risen in arms, like my friends of 
La Tropa—a tough, happy race of mountaineers and 
cowboys, among whom were many who had been ban- 


dits in the old days. Unpaid, ill-clad, undisciplined— — 


238 


ina 5 


AN OUTPOST IN ACTION 


their officers merely the bravest among them—armed 
only with aged Springfields and a handful of cartridges 
apiece, they had fought almost continuously for three 
years. For four months they, and the irregular troops 
of such guerrilla chiefs as Urbina and Robles, had held 
the advance around Torreon, fighting almost daily with 
Federal outposts and suffering all the hardships of the 
campaign, while the main army garrisoned Chihuahua 
and Juarez. These ragged men were the bravest sol- 
diers in Villa’s army. 

I had lain there about fifteen minutes, watching the 
beef sizzle in the flames and satisfying the eager curi- 
osity of a crowd as to my curious profession, when 
there was a sound of galloping, and a voice, ““They’re 
coming out of Lerdo! To horse!” 

Half a hundred men reluctantly, and in a leisurely 
manner, made for their horses. The colonel rose, yawn- 
ing. He stretched. 


6c 


the animals of Federals!” he growled. 
“They stay on our minds all the time. You never have 
time to think of more pleasant things. It’s a shame 
they won’t let us even eat our dinner!” 

We were mounted soon, trotting down the bank of 
the stream. Far in front sounded the pin-pricking 
rifles. Instinctively, without order, we broke into a 
gallop; through the streets of a little village, where 
the pacificos stood on the roofs of their houses, look- 
ing off to the south, little bundles of their belongings 
beside them so they could flee if the battle went against 
us, for the Federals cruelly punish villages which have 


239 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


harbored the enemy. Beyond lay the stony little hill. 
We got off our horses, and throwing the reins over their 
heads, climbed on foot. About a dozen men already 
lay there, shooting spasmodically in the direction of the 
green bank of trees behind which lay Lerdo. Unseen 
scattering shots ripped from the blank desert between. 
About half a mile away small brown figures dodged 


—- 


around in the brush. A thin dust-cloud showed where — 


another detachment was marching slowly north in their 


reaF. 


“We already got one sure, and another one in the’ 


leg,” said a soldier, spitting. y 


“How many do you make them out?” asked the colo- — 


nel, 

“About two hundred.” 

The Colonel stood bolt upright, carelessly looking 
out over the sunny plain. Immediately a roll of shots 
swept along their front. A bullet chirped overhead. 


Already the men had gone to work, unordered. Each ~ 


soldier picked out a smooth place to lie and piled up 


a little heap of stones in front to shield him. They ~ 


lay down grunting, loosening their belts and taking off 
their coats to be perfectly comfortable; then they be- 
gan slowly and methodically to shoot. 

“There goes another,” announced the Colonel. 
‘Yours, Pedro.” ; 


“Not Pedro’s at all,” interrupted another man fret- — 


fully. “I got him.” 


“OQ the devil you did,” snapped Pedro. They quar- © 


reled. ... 
240 


AN OUTPOST IN ACTION 


The firing from the desert was now pretty general, 
and we could see the Federals slipping toward us under 
the protection of every bush and arroyo. Our men 
fired slowly and carefully, aiming a long time before 
they pulled the trigger, for the months with scanty am- 
munition around Torreon had made them economical. 
But now every hill and bush along our line held a little 
knot of sharpshooters, and looking back on the wide 
flats and fields between the hill and the railroad, I saw 
innumerable single horsemen and squads of them spur- 
ring through the brush. In ten minutes we would have 
five hundred men with us. 

The rifle fire along the line swelled and deepened 
until there was a solid mile of it. The Federals had 
stopped; now the dust-clouds began slowly to move 
backward in the direction of Lerdo. The fire from the 
desert slackened. And then, from nowhere, we sud- 
denly saw the broad-winged vultures sailing, serene and 
motionless, in the blue. . .. 


The Colonel, his men and I democratically ate lunch 
in the shade of the village houses. Our meat was, of 
course, scorched, so we had to do the best we could with 
jerked beef and pifole, which seems to be cinnamon and 
bran, ground fine. I never enjoyed a meal so. . 
And when I left the men made up a double handful of 
cigarettes as a present. 

Said the Colonel: “Amigo, I am sorry that we had 
not time for a talk together. There are many things I 
want to ask you about your country—whether it is 


241 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


true, for example, that in your cities men have entirely 
lost the use of their legs and don’t ride horseback in 
the streets, but are borne about in automobiles. I 
had a brother once who worked on the railroad track 
near Kansas City, and he told me wonderful things. 
But a man called him ‘greaser’ one day and shot him 
without that my brother did anything to him. Why is: 
it your people don’t like Mexicans? I like many Amer- 
icans. I like you. Here is a gift for you.” He un- 
buckled one of his huge iron spurs, inlaid with silver, 
and gave it to me. ‘But we never had any time here 
for talk. These 


have to get up and kill a few of them before we can 
93 


always annoy us, and then we 


have a moment’s peace. .. . 

Under the alamo trees I found one of the photog-— 
raphers and a moving-picture man. They were lying 
flat on their backs near a fire, around which squatted 
twenty soldiers, gorging ravenously flour tortillas, meat 
and coffee. One proudly displayed a silver wrist-watch. 

“That used to be my watch,” explained the pho-— 
tographer. ‘‘You see we hadn’t had anything to eat 
for two days, and when we came past here these boys — 
called us and gave us the most magnificent feed I have 
ever tasted. After that I just couldn’t help giving 
them a present!” 

The soldiers had accepted the gift communally and 
were agreeing that each should wear it for two hours; 
from then on until the end of life... 


CONTRERAS’ MEN ASSAULT 


CHAPTER XII 


CONTRERAS’ MEN ASSAULT 


BY sad ver my friend the photographer 


and I were wandering across a field when 

Villa came by on his horse. He looked 
tired, dirty, but happy. Reining up in front of us, the 
motions of his body as easy and graceful as a wolf’s, he 
grinned and said, ‘Well, boys, how is it going now?” 

We answered that we were perfectly contented. 

“T haven’t time to worry about you, so you must be 
careful not to go into danger. It is bad—the wounded. 
Hundreds. They are brave, those muchachos; the 
bravest people in the world. But,” he continued de- 
lightedly, “‘you must go and see the hospital train. 
There is something fine for you to write your papers 
mpout. .. .” 

And truly it was a magnificent thing to see. The 
hospital train lay right behind the work train now. 
Forty box-cars, enameled inside, stenciled on the side 
with a big blue cross and the legend, “Servicio Sani- 
tario,” handled the wounded as they came from the 
front. They were fitted inside with the latest surgical 
appliances and manned by sixty competent American 
and Mexican doctors. Every night shuttle trains car- 
ried the seriously hurt back to the base hospitals at 
Chihuahua and Parral. 


We went down through San Ramon and beyond the 
end of the line of trees out across the desert. It was 


243 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


already stinging hot. In front a snake of rifle fire 
unfolded along the line, and then a machine gun, 
“spat—spat—spat!”? As we emerged into the open a 
lone Mauser began cracking down to the right some- 
where. We paid no attention to it at first, but pretty 
soon we noticed that there was a little plumping sound 
on the ground around us—puffs of dust flew up every 
few minutes. ) 

“By God,” said the photographer. “Some beggar’s 
sniping at us.” 

Instinctively we both sprinted. The rifle shots came 
faster. It was a long distance across the plain. After 
a little we reduced it to a jog-trot. Finally we walked 
along, with the dust spurting up as before, and a feel- 
ing that, after all, it wouldn’t do any good to run. 
Then we forgot it. ... 

Half an hour later we crept through the brush a 
quarter of a mile from the outskirts of Gomez and 
came upon a tiny ranch of six or eight adobe huts, with 
a street running between. In the lee of one of the houses 
lounged and sprawled about sixty of Contreras’ ragged 
fighters. ‘They were playing cards and talking lazily. 
Down the street, just around the corner, which pointed 
straight as a die toward the Federal positions, a storm. 
of bullets swept continually, whipping up the dust. 
These men had been on duty at the front all night. The 
countersign had been “‘no hats,” and they were bare-. 
headed in the broiling sun. They had had no sleep and 
no food, and there wasn’t any water for half a mile. } 

“There is a Federal cuartel up ahead there that is 


— 244 


a rd 


CONTRERAS’ MEN ASSAULT 


firing,” explained a boy about twelve years old. “We've 
got orders to attack when the artillery comes.” 

An old man squatting against the wall asked me 
where I came from. I said New York. 

“Well,” he said, “I don’t know anything about New 
York, but I'll bet you don’t see such fine cattle going 
through the streets as you see in the streets of Jim- 
inez.”” 

“You don’t see any cattle in the streets of New 
York,” I said. 

He looked at me incredulously. “What, no cattle? 
You mean to tell me that they don’t drive cattle 
through the streets up there? Or sheep?” 

I said they didn’t. He looked at me as if he thought 
I was a great liar; then he cast his eyes on the ground 
and thought deeply. 

“Well,” he pronounced finally, “then I don’t want 
eo go there! .. .” 

Two skylarking boys started a game of tag; in a 
minute twenty full-grown men were chasing each other 
around in great glee. The card players had one short 
deck of torn cards, and at least eight people were try- 
ing to play some game and arguing about the rules at 
the top of their voices, or perhaps there weren’t enough 
cards to go around. Four or five had crawled into the 
shade of the house, singing satirical love songs. All 
this time the steady infernal din up ahead never re- 
lented, and the bullets spattered in the dust like rain 
drops. Occasionally one of the men would slouch over, 
poke his rifle around the corner and fire... . 

We stayed there about half an hour. Then two gray 


245 


t 
INSURGENT MEXICO | 


cannons came rocketing out of the brush behind and. 
wheeled into position in a dry ditch seventy-five yards 
away on the left. 5 | 

“T guess we’re going in a minute,” said the boy. | 

At that moment three men galloped up from the rear, 
evidently officers. ‘They were entirely exposed to rifle 
fire over the roofs of the huts, but jerked up their 
horses with the shots yelling all around, contemptuous 
of them. The first to speak was Fierro, the superb 
great animal of a man who had murdered Benton. 

He sneered down at the ragged soldiers from his 
saddle. ‘‘Well, this is a fine-looking crowd to take a 
city with,” he said. “But we’ve got nobody else down 
here. Go in when you hear the bugle.” Pulling cruelly 
on the bit, so that his big horse reared straight up and 
whirled on his hind legs, Fierro galloped off rearward, 


saying as he went, “Useless, those simple fools of Con- 
99 


treras 

“Death to the Butcher!” said a man furiously. 
“That murderer killed my compadre in the streets of 
Durango—for no crime or insult! My compadre was 
very drunk, walking in front of the theater. He asked 


Fierro what time it was, and Fierro said, You ! 


How dare you speak to me before I speak to you 
first ¥ | 
But the bugle was blowing, and up they got, grab- 
bing their guns. The tag game tried to stop, but 
couldn’t. Furious card players were accusing each 
other of stealing the deck. . 
“Oiga, Fidencio!” cried one soldier. “Tl bet you 


246 


A NIGHT ATTACK 


my saddle I come back and you don’t! This morning 
I won a nice bridle from Juan ef 

“All right! Muy bien! My new pinto horse... .” 

Laughing, joking, rollicking, they swept out of the 
shelter of the houses into the rain of steel. They scut- 
tled awkwardly up the street, like little brown animals 
unused to running. Billowing dust veiled them and a 
hell of noise... . 


CHAPTER XIII 


A NIGHT ATTACK 


ditch far up along the alamos. Our car, with 

its food supply, clothes and blankets, was still 
twenty miles back. Most of the time we went without 
meals. When we could manage to beg a few cans of 
sardines or some flour from the commissary train we 
were lucky. Wednesday one of the crowd had man- 
aged to get hold of tinned salmon, coffee, crackers and 
a big package of cigarettes; and as we cooked dinner 


iY: or three of us had a sort of camp beside the 


Mexican after Mexican, passing on his way to the front, 
dismounted and joined us. After the most elaborate 
exchange of courtesies, in which we had to persuade 
our guest to eat hugely of the dinner we had painfully 
foraged for ourselves, and he had to comply out of 
politeness, he would mount and ride away without grati- 
tude, though full of friendliness. 

We stretched out on the bank in the golden twilight, 
smoking. The first train, headed by a flat-car upon 


247 


~~ except the far hammering of the tireless repair gang 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


which was mounted the cannon “El Nifio,” had now 
reached a point opposite the end of the second line of 
trees—scarcely a mile from town. As far as you could 
see ahead of her, the repair gang toiled on the track. 
All at once there came a terrific boom, and a little puff 
of smoke lifted from the front of the train. Far cheer- 
ing scattered among the trees and fields. ‘El Nifio,” 
the darling of the army, had got within range at last. 
Now the Federals would sit up and take notice. She 
was a three-inch gun—the largest we had. . . . Later 
we found out that an exploratory engine had sallied 
forth from the Gomez roundhouse, and that a shot from 
**E] Nifio” had hit her square in the middle of the boiler 
and blown her up... . | 

We were to attack that night, they said, and long 
after dark I got. on my horse, Bucephalus, and rode 
down front. The sign was “Herrera” and the counter-_ 
sign “Chihuahua number four.” So as to be sure of — 
recognition as one of “ours,” the command was to pin | 
your hat up behind. Everywhere the strictest orders | 
had been sent out that no fires should be lit in the “‘zone : 
of fire,” and that anyone striking a match until the bat- 
tle began should be shot by the sentries. 

Bucephalus and I jogged slowly along in the moon- * 
less and absolutely silent night. Nowhere was there a 


light or a stir all over the vast plain before Gomez, | 


working on the track. In the town itself the electric | 
lights shone brightly, and even a street car bound for 
Lerdo lost itself behind the Cerro de la Pila. 

Then I heard a tiny murmuring of human voices in | 


248 | 
| 
| 


A NIGHT ATTACK 


the darkness near the ditch ahead—evidently an out- 
post. 

“Quien vive?” came a shout. And before I had a 
chance to answer, BANG! He fired. The bullet went 
past my head. Biouw! 

“No, no, you fool,” drawled an exasperated voice. 
“Don’t shoot as soon as you challenge! Wait until he 
gives the wrong answer! Listen to me, now.” This 
time the formality was satisfactory to both sides and 
the officer said, ““Pase Usted!’ But I could hear the 
original sentry growling, “Well, I don’t see what 
difference it makes. I never hit anybody when I 

CL 
Feeling my way carefully through the darkness, I 
stumbled into the rancho of San Ramon. I knew that 
the pacificos had all fled, so it surprised me to see light 
shining around the chinks of a door. I was thirsty and 
didn’t care to trust the ditch. I called. A woman ap- 
peared, with a little brood of four babies clinging to her 
skirts. She brought water, and all of a sudden burst 
out with, “O sefior, do you know where the guns of the 
| Brigada Zaragosa are? My man is there, and I haven’t 
seen him for seven days.” 

“Then you are not a pacifico?” 

“Truly I am not,” she returned indignantly, point- 
ing to her children. ‘We belong to the artillery.” 

Down front the army lay stretched along the ditch 
at the foot of the first line of trees. In absolute dark- 
ness they whispered to each other, waiting until the 
word of Villa to the advance guard a quarter of a mile 
ahead should precipitate the first rifle shots. 


249 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


‘‘Where are your rifles?” I asked. 

“This brigade is to use no rifles to-night,” answered 
a voice. “Over on the left, where they are to attack 
the intrenchments, there are rifles. But we must cap- 
ture the Brittingham Corral to-night, and rifles are no 
good. We are Contreras’ men, the Brigada Juarez. 
See, we have orders to walk up to the walls and throw 
these bombs inside!” He held out the bomb. It was 
made of a short stick of dynamite sewed in a strip of 
cowhide, with a fuse stuck in one end. He went 
on: “General Robles’ gente are over there on the right. 
They, too, have granados, but rifles also. ‘They are 
going to assault the Cerro de la Pila. . . .” 

And now down the warm, still night came suddenly 
the sound of heavy firing from the direction of Lerdo, 
where Maclovio Herrera was going in with his brigade. 
Almost simultaneously from dead ahead rifle fire awoke 
sputtering. A man came down the line with a lighted 
cigar glowing like a firefly in the hollow of his hands. 

“Light your cigarettes from this,” he said, “and 
don’t set fire to your fuses until you’re right up under 
the wall.” 

“Captain, carramba! It’s going to be very, very 
duro! How shall we know the right time?” 

Another voice, deep, rough, spoke up in the dark. 

“Til tell you. Just come along with me.” 

A whispered, smothered shout of “Viva Villa!’ burst 
from them. On foot, holding a lighted cigar in one 
hand—for he never smoked—and a bomb in the other, 
the General climbed the bank of the ditch and plunged 
into the brush, the others pouring after him... . 


250 


A NIGHT ATTACK 


All along the line now the rifle fire roared, though 
down behind the trees I could see nothing of the attack. 
The artillery was silent, the troops being too close to- 
gether in the dark to permit the use of shrapnel by 
either side. I rode back and over to the right, where I 
climbed my horse up the steep ditch bank. From there 
I could see the dancing tiny fires of the guns at Lerdo, 
and scattered spurts like a string of jewels all along 
our front. Over to the extreme left a new and deeper 
_ noise told where Benavides was making a demonstration 
against Torreon proper with quick-firing guns. I stood 
tensely awaiting the attack. 

It came with the force of an explosion. In the direc- 
tion of the Brittingham Corral, which I could not see, 
the syncopated rhythm of four machine guns and a 
continuous inhuman blast of volleying rifles made the 
previous noise seem like the deepest silence. A quick 
glare reddened the heaven above, and then the shock- 
ing detonations of dynamite. I could imagine the yell- 
ing savages sweeping up the street against that wither- 
ing flame, wavering, pausing, struggling on again, with 
Villa just in front, talking to them back over his shoul- 
der, as he always did. Now more furious firing over to 
the right indicated that the attack against the Cerro 
de la Pila had reached the foot of the hill. And all at 
once on the far end of the ridge toward Lerdo, there 
were flashes. Maclovio must have taken Lerdo! Lo! 
All at once appeared a magical sight. Up the steep 
_ slope of the Cerro, around three sides of it, slowly rose 
a ring of fierce light. It was the steady flame of rifle 
fire from the attackers. The summit, too, streamed 


251 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


fire, which intensified as the ring converged toward it, 
raggeder now. <A bright glare burst from the top— 
then another. <A second later arrived the dreadful re- 
ports of cannon. ‘They were opening upon the little 
line of climbing men with artillery! But still they 
rose upon the black hill. The ring of flame was broken 


now in many places, but it never faltered. So until it © 


seemed to merge: with the venomous spitting blaze at 
the summit. Then all at once it seemed to wither com- 
pletely, and little single fireflies kept dropping down 
the slope—all that were left. And when I thought that 
all was lost, and marveled at the useless heroism of 
these peons who walked up a hill in the face of artil- 
lery, behold! The ring of flame was creeping slowly 
upward again. ... That night they attacked the 
Cerro seven times on foot, and at every attack seven- 
eighths of them were killed. . . . All this time the in- 
fernal roaring and the play of red light over the 
Corral did not stop. Occasionally there seemed to 
come a lull, but it recommenced only more terribly. 
They assaulted the Corral eight times. . . . The morn- . 
ing that I entered Gomez, although the Federals had | 
been steadily burning bodies for three days, they were 
so thick in the wide space before the Brittingham Cor- 
ral that I could hardly ride through on horseback, and | 
around the Cerro were seven distinct ridges of rebel 
dead. s/s 5 

The wounded began creeping through the plain ob- — 
scurely in the dense darkness. Their cries and groans © 
could be distinctly heard, though the battle noise © 


252 


THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO 


drowned every other sound—you could even hear the 
rustle of the bushes as they crept through, and their 
dragging feet on the sand. A horseman passed along 
the path below me, cursing furiously that he must leave 
the battle because his arm was broken, and weeping be- 
tween curses. Then came a footman, who sat at the 
foot of my bank and nursed a hand, talking without 
cessation about all sorts of things to keep from a nerv- 
ous breakdown. 

“How brave we Mexicans are,” he said drolly. “Kill- 
ing each other like this! . . .” 

I soon went back to camp, sick with boredom. A 
battle is the most boring thing in the world if it lasts 
any length of time. It is all the same. ... And in 
the morning I went to get the news at headquarters. 
We had captured Lerdo, but the Cerro, the Corral and 
the cuartel were still the enemy’s. All that slaughter 
for nothing! 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO 


L NINO” was now within half a mile of the 
town, and the workmen of the repair gang la- 
bored on the last stretch of track under heavy 

shrapnel fire. The two cannon on the front of the 
trains bore all the brunt of their artillery, and bravely 
did they return the fire—so well, in fact, that after one 
Federal shell had killed ten workmen, “El Nifio’s” cap- 
tain put two guns on the Cerro out of action. So the 


253 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Federals left the trains alone and turned their atten- 
tion to shelling Herrera out of Lerdo. 

The Constitutionalist army was terribly shattered. In 
the four days’ fighting about a thousand men had been 
killed and almost two thousand more wounded. Even 
the excellent hospital train was inadequate to handle 
the wounded. Out on the wide plain where we were the 
faint smell of dead bodies pervaded everything. 
In Gomez it must have been horrible. ‘Thursday the 
smoke from twenty funeral pyres stained the sky. But 
Villa was more determined than ever. Gomez must be 
taken, and quickly. He didn’t have ammunition or sup- 
plies enough for a siege, and, moreover, his name was a 
legend already with the enemy—wherever Pancho Villa 
appeared in battle, they had begun to believe it lost. 
And the effect on his own troops was most important, 
too. So he scheduled another night attack. 

“The track is all repaired,” reported Calzado, Super- 
intendent of the Railways. 

“Good,” said Villa. ‘Bring up all the trains from 
the rear to-night, because we’re going into Gomez in the 
morning!” 

Night fell; breathless, silent night, with a sound of 
frogs along the ditches. Across the front of the town 
the soldiers lay waiting for the word to attack. 
Wounded, worn out, nervously broken, they straggled 
to the front, keyed up to the last notch of desperation. 
This night they would not be repulsed. They would 
take the town or die where they stood. And as nine 
o’clock approached, the hour at which the attack had 
been set, the tension became dangerous. 


254 


THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO 


Nine o’clock came and passed—not a sound or move- 
ment. For some reason the order was withheld. Ten 
o’clock. Suddenly off to the right a volley burst from 
the town. All along our line awoke the answer, but 
after a few more volleys the Federal fire altogether 
ceased. From the town came other, more mysteri- 
ous sounds. The electric lights went out and in the 
darkness there was a subtle stir and movement, indefina- 
ble. At length the order was given to advance, but as 
our men crept forward in the dark the front rank sud- 
denly gave a yell, and the truth spread through the 
ranks and out into the country, in one triumphant 
shout. Gomez Palacio had been evacuated! With a 
great babble of voices the army poured into the town. 
A few scattered shots sounded where our troops caught 
some of the Federals looting—for the Federal army 
had gutted the whole town before it left. And then 
our army began to loot. Their shouts and drunken 
singing and the sounds of smashing doors reached us 
out on the plain. Little tongues of flame flickered up 
where the soldiers were burning some house that had 
been a fort of Federals. But the looting of the rebels 
was confined, as it almost always is, to food, and drink, 
and clothes to cover them. They disturbed no private 
house. 

The chiefs of the army winked at this. A specific 
order was issued by Villa stating that whatever any 
soldier picked up was his and could not be taken from 
him by an officer. Now up to this time there was not 
much of stealing in the army—at least so far as 
we were concerned. But the morning of the entry into 


255 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Gomez a curious change had come over the psychology 
of the soldiers. I woke at our camp beside the ditch 
to find my horse gone. Bucephalus had been stolen in 
the night and I never saw him again. During break- 
fast several troopers dropped in to share our meal— 
when they had gone we missed a knife and a revolver. 
The truth was that everybody was looting from every- 
body else. So I, too, stole what I needed. There was a 
great gray mule grazing in the field near by, with a 
rope around his neck. I put my saddle on him and 
rode down toward the front. He was a noble animal— 
worth at least four times as much as Bucephalus, as 
I soon discovered. Everybody I met coveted that mule. 
One trooper marching along with two rifles hailed me. 
“Oija, compafiero, where did you get that mule?” 

“IT found him in a field,” said I unwisely. 

“It is just as I thought,” he exclaimed. “That is my 
mule! Get off and give him to me at once!” 

‘And is this your saddle?” I asked. 

“By the Mother of God, it is!” 

“Then you lie about the mule, for the saddle is my 
own.” I rode on, leaving him yelling in the road. A 
short distance farther on an old peon walking along 
suddenly ran up and threw his arms around the ani- 
mal’s neck, 

“Ah, at last! My beautiful mule which I lost! My 
Juanito!? I shook him off in spite of his entreaties 
that at least I should pay him fifty pesos as compen- 
sation for his mule. In town a cavalryman rode across 
in front of me, demanding his mule at once. He was 
rather ugly and had a revolver. I got away by saying 


256 


THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO 


that I was a captain of artillery and that the mule be- 
longed to my battery. Every few feet some owner 
of that mule sprang up and asked me how dared I ride 
his own dear Panchito, or Pedrito, or Tomasito! At 
last one came out of a cuartel with a written order 
from his Colonel, who had seen the mule from his win- 
dow. I showed them my pass signed by Francisco 
Villa. ‘That was enough... 

Across the wide desert, where the Constitutionalists 
had fought so long, the army was winding in from 
every direction, in long snake-like columns, dust hang- 
ing over them. And along the track, as far as the eye 
could reach, came the trains, one after another, 
blowing triumphant whistles, crowded with thousands 
of women and soldiers cheering. Within the city, dawn 
had brought absolute quiet and order. With the en- 
trance of Villa and his staff the looting had absolutely 
ceased and the soldiers again respected other people’s 
property. A thousand were hard at work gathering up 
the bodies and carrying them to the edge of the city, 
where they were set on fire. Five hundred more policed 
the town. The first order issued was that any soldier 
caught drinking should be shot. 


In the third train was our car—the private box-car 
fitted up for the correspondents, photographers and 
moving-picture men. At last we had our bunks, our 
blankets, and Fong, our beloved Chinese cook. The 
car was switched up near in the railway station—in the 
very front rank of trains. And as we gathered in its 
grateful interior, hot, dusty and worn out, the Federals 


Q57 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


in Torreon dropped a few shrapnel shells right close 
beside us. I was standing in the door of the car at the 
time and heard the boom of cannon, but paid no par- 
ticular attention to it. Suddenly I noticed a small ob- 
ject in the air like an exaggerated beetle, trailing a 
little spiral of black smoke behind it. It passed the 
door of the car with a zzzzzing noise and about forty 
feet beyond burst with a frightful Crash—Whee-e-e- 
eeaa!! among the trees of a park where a company of 
cavalry and their women were camping. A hundred 
men leaped for their plunging horses in a panic and 
galloped frantically toward the rear, the women stream- 
ing after them. Two women had been killed, it seemed, 
and a horse. Blankets, food, rifles—all were discarded 
in the panic. Pow! Another burst on the other side 
of the car. They were very close. Behind us on the 
track twenty long trains, laden with shrilly screaming 
women, were trying to back out of the yards all at 
once, with a mighty hysterical tooting of whistles. Two 
or three more shells followed, then we could hear “El 
Nifio” replying. 

But the effect on the correspondents and newspaper 
men was peculiar. No sooner had the first shell ex- 
ploded than someone produced the whisky jug, entirely 
of his own impulse, and we passed it around. No one 
said a word, but everybody drank a stiff swig as it came 
his way. Every time a shell would explode nearby we 
would all wince and jump, but after a while we did not 
mind it. ‘Then we began to congratulate each other 
and ourselves for being so brave as to stay by the car 
under artillery fire. Our courage increased as the firing 


258 


THE FALL OF GOMEZ PALACIO 


‘rrew far between and finally quit altogether, and as the 
shisky grew low. Everybody forgot dinner. 

I remember that in the darkness two belligerent 
Anglo-Saxons stood at the door of the car, challenging 
the soldiers who passed and abusing them in the most 
liscourteous language. We fell out among ourselves, 
soo, and one man almost choked a driveling old fool 
vho was with the moving-picture outfit. Late that 
night we were still trying earnestly to persuade two 
of the boys not to sally forth without the pass-word 
and reconnoiter the Federal lines at Torreon. 


: 


Mexican greaser hasn’t any guts! One American can 
lick fifty Mexicans! Why, did you see how they ran 
this afternoon when the shells hit that grove? And how 
we—hic—we staid by the car?” 


“Aw, what’s there to be afraid of?’ cried they. “A \ 


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Pa bey As f va Una | Mal ae Pa 


PART FIVE 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


1) 


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Sabie kadai 
TAS 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


V J HEN the Treaty of Peace was signed in 

Juarez which ended the Revolution of 1910, 

Francisco Madero proceeded south toward 

Mexico City. Everywhere he spoke to enthusiastic and 

triumphant throngs of peons, who acclaimed him The 
Liberator. 

In Chihuahua he addressed the people from the bal- 
cony of the Governor’s palace. As he told of the hard- 
ships endured and the sacrifices made by the little band 
of men who had overthrown the dictatorship of Diaz 
forever, he was overcome with emotion. Reaching in- 
side the room he pulled out a tall, bearded man of com- 
manding presence, and, throwing his arm about his 
shoulder, he said, in a voice choked with tears: 

“This is a good man! Love and honor him always.” 

It was Venustiano Carranza, a man of upright life 
and high ideals ; an aristocrat, descended from the dom- 
inant Spanish race; a great land-owner, as his family 
had always been great land-owners; and one of those 
Mexican nobles who, like a few French nobles such as 
Lafayette in the French Revolution, threw themselves 
heart and soul into the struggle for liberty. When 
the Madero Revolution broke out Carranza took the 


263 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


field in truly medieval fashion. He armed the peons 
who worked upon his great estates, and led them to 
war like any feudal overlord; and, when the Revolution 
was done, Madero made him Governor of Coahuila. 

There he was when Madero was murdered at the 
Capital, and Huerta, seizing the Presidency, sent a 
circular letter to the Governors of the different States, 
ordering them to acknowledge the new dictatorship. 
Carranza refused even to answer the letter, declaring 
that he would have no dealings with a murderer and 
a usurper. He issued a proclamation calling the Mexi- 
can people to arms, proclaiming himself First Chief of 
the Revolution, and inviting the friends of liberty to 
rally around him. ‘Then he marched out from his 
capital and took the field, where he assisted in the 
early fighting around Torreon. 

After a short time Carranza marched his force from 
Coahuila, where things were happening, straight across 
the Republic into the State of Sonora, where nothing 
was happening. Villa had begun heavy fighting in 
Chihuahua State, Urbina and Herrera in Durango, 
Blanco and others in Coahuila, and Gonzales near T'am- 
pico. In times of upheaval like these it is inevitable 
that there shall be some preliminary squabbling over 
the ultimate spoils of war. Among the military lead- 
ers, however, there was no such dissension; Villa hav- 
ing just been unanimously elected General Chief of the 
Constitutionalist Army by a remarkable gathering of 
all the independent guerrilla leaders before Torreon, 
—an unheard-of event in Mexican history. But over 
in Sonora, Maytorena and Pesquiera were already 


264 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


squabbling over who should be Governor of the State, 
and threatening revolutions against each other. Car- 
ranza’s reported purpose in crossing to the West with 
his army was to settle this dispute. But that doesn’t 
seem possible. 

Other explanations are that he desired to secure a 
seaport for the Constitutionalists on the West; that 
he wanted to settle the Yaqui land question; and that 
in the quiet of a comparatively peaceful State he could 
better organize the provisional government of the new 
Republic. He remained there six months, apparently 
doing nothing whatever, keeping a force of more than 
6,000 good fighters practically inoperative, attending 
banquets and bull-fights, establishing and celebrating 
innumerable new national holidays, and issuing procla- 
mations. His army, twice or three times as big as the 
disheartened garrisons of Guaymas and Mazatlan, 
kept up a lazy siege of those places. Mazatlan fell 
only a short time ago, I think; as did Guaymas. Only 
a few weeks ago Provisional-Governor Maytorena was 
threatening counter-revolutions against General Al- 
vardo, Chief of Arms of Sonora, because he would not 
guarantee the Governor’s safety, and evidently pro- 
posing to upset the Revolution because Maytorena 
was uncomfortable in the palace at Hermosillo. Dur- 
ing all that time not a word was said about any aspect 
of the land question, as far as I could learn. The 
Yaqui Indians, the expropriation of whose lands is - 
the blackest spot in the whole black history of the \ 
Diaz régime, got nothing but a vague promise. Upon \\ 
that the whole tribe joined the Revolution. But a few 

265 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


months later most of them went back to their homes 
and began again their hopeless campaign against the 
white man. 


Carranza hibernated until early in the spring of 
this year, when, the purpose of his Sonora sojourn 
evidently having been accomplished, he turned his face 
toward the territory where the real Revolution was 
being fought. 

Within that six months the aspect of things had 
entirely changed. Except for the northern part of 
Nueva Leon, and most of Coahuila, northern Mexico 
was Constitutionalist territory almost from sea to 
sea, and Villa, with a well-armed, well-disciplined force 
of 10,000 men, was entering on the Torreon campaign. 
All this was accomplished almost single-handed by 
Villa; Carranza seems to have contributed nothing but 
congratulations. He had, indeed, formed a provisional — 
government. An immense throng of opportunist poli- 
ticians surrounded the First Chief, loud in their pro- 
testations of devotion to the Cause, liberal with procla- 
mations, and extremely jealous of each other and of 
Villa. Little by little Carranza’s personality seemed 
to be engulfed in the personality of his Cabinet, al- 
though his name remained as prominent as ever. 

It was a curious situation. Correspondents who 
were with him during these months have told me how 
secluded the First Chief finally became. They almost 
never saw him. Very rarely did they speak with him. 
Various secretaries, officials, Cabinet members, stood 
between them and him—polite, diplomatic, devious gen-_ 


266 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


_tlemen, who transmitted their questions to Carranza on 
paper and brought them back his answers written out, 
so that there would be no mistake. 

_ But, whatever he did, Carranza left Villa strictly 
alone, to undergo defeats if he must, or make mistakes ; 
so much so that Villa himself was forced to deal with 
foreign powers as if he were the head of the govern- 
ment. 

There is no doubt that the politicians at Hermosillo 
sought in every way to make Carranza jealous of 
Villa’s growing power in the north. In February the 
First Chief began a leisurely journey northward, ac- 
companied by 3,000 troops, with the ostensible object 
of sending reinforcements to Villa and of making his 
provisional capital in Juarez when Villa left for Tor- 
reon. ‘Two correspondents, however, who had been in 


Sonora, told me that the officers of this immense body- 
guard believed that they were to be sent against Villa 
himself. 

In Hermosillo Carranza had been remote from the 
world’s new centers. No one knew but what he might 
be accomplishing great things. But when the First 
Chief of the Revolution began to move toward the 
American border, the attention of the world was con- 
centrated upon him; and the attention of the world 
revealed so little to concentrate upon, that rumors 
rapidly spread of the non-existence of Carranza; for 
example, one paper said that he was insane, and an- 
other alleged that he had disappeared altogether. 

I was in Chihuahua at the time. My paper wired 
me these rumors and ordered me to go and find Car- 


267 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


ranza. It was at the immensely exciting time of the 
Benton murder. All the protestations and half-veiled 
threats of the British and American governments con-_ 
verged upon Villa. But by the time I had received the 
message Carranza and his Cabinet had arrived at the 
Border and broken the six months’ silence in a startling | 
way. The First Chief’s declaration to the State De-_ 
partment was practically this: 

“You have made a mistake in addressing represen-— 
tations in the Benton case to General Villa. They 
should be addressed to me as First Chief of the Revo- 
lution and head of the Provisional Constitutionalist — 
Government. Moreover, the United States has no 
business to address, even to me, any representations — 
concerning Benton, who was a British subject. I have 
received no envoy from the government of Great Brit- 
ain. Until I do I will make no answer to the repre-_ 
sentations of any other government. Meanwhile, a 
thorough investigation will be made of the circum- 
stances of Benton’s death, and those responsible for 
it will be judged strictly according to law.” 

At the same time Villa received a pretty plain in-— 
timation that he was to keep out of international af- 
fairs, and Villa gratefully shut up. 


That was the situation when I went to Nogales. 
Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, really 
form one big straggling town. The international - 
boundary runs along the middle of the street, and at 
a small customs-house lounge a few ragged Mexican 
sentries, smoking interminable cigarettes, and evidently 


268 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


interfering with nobody, except to collect export taxes 
from everything that passes to the American side. The 
inhabitants of the American town go across the line 
to get good things to eat, to gamble, to dance, and 
to feel free; the Mexicans cross to the American side 
when somebody is after them. 

I arrived at midnight and went at once to a hotel 
in the Mexican town where the Cabinet and most of 
the political hangers-on of Carranza were staying; 
sleeping four in a room, on cots in the corridors, on 
the floor, and even on the stairs. I was expected. A 
temperamental Constitutionalist consul up the line, to 
whom I had explained my errand, evidently considered 
it of great importance; for he had telegraphed to No- 
gales that the entire fate of the Mexican Revolution 
depended upon Mr. Reed’s seeing the First Chief of 
the Revolution immediately upon his arrival. How- 
ever, everybody had gone to sleep, and the proprietor, 
routed out of his back office, said that he hadn’t the 
slightest idea what the names of any of the gentlemen 
were or where they slept. Yes, he said, he had heard 
that Carranza was in town. We went around kicking 
‘doors and Mexicans until we stumbled upon an un- 
‘shaven but courteous gentleman who said that he was 
the Collector of Customs for the whole of Mexico under 
the new government. He waked up in turn the Sec- 
retary of the Navy, who routed out the Secretary of 
the Treasury; the Secretary of the Treasury finally 
flushed the Secretary of Hacienda, who finally 
brought us to the room of the Secretary of Foreign 
Relations, Sefior Isidro Fabela. Sefior Fabela said 


269 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


that the First Chief had retired and couldn’t see me; 
but that he himself would give me immediately a state- 
ment of just what Carranza thought about the Ben- 
ton incident. 
Now none of the newspapers had ever heard of Sefior 
Fabela before. They were all clamoring to their cor- 
respondents, wanting to know who he was. He seemed 
to be such an important member of the provisional 
government, and yet his antecedents were not known 
at all. At different times he apparently filled most of 
the positions in the First Chief’s Cabinet. Rather 
medium height and_ distinguished-looking, suave, 
courteous, and evidently very well educated, his face 
was decidedly Jewish. We talked for a long time, sit- 
ting on the edge of his bed. He told me what the 
First Chief’s aims and ideals were; but in them I could 
discern nothing of the First Chief’s personality what- 
ever. 
“Oh, yes,” he said, “of course I could see the First 
Chief in the morning. Of course he would receive me. % 
But when we came right down to cases, Sefior Fae 
bela told me that the First Chief would answer no 
questions outright. ‘They had all to be put in writing, 
he said, and submitted to Fabela first. He would then 
take them to Carranza and bring back his answer. Ac- 
cordingly, the next morning I wrote out on paper 
about twenty-five questions and gave them to label 
He read them carefully. | 
“Ah!” he said; “‘there are many questions here that 
I know the First Chief will not answer. I advise you 
to strike them out.” ; 


270 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


“Well, if he doesn’t answer them,” I said, “‘all right. 
But I would like to give him a chance to see them. He 
could only refuse to answer them.” 

“No,” said Fabela, politely. ‘You had better strike 
them out now. I know exactly what he will answer and 
what he will not. You see, some of your questions 
might prejudice him against answering all the rest, 
and you would not want that to occur, would you?” 

“Sefior Fabela,” I said, ‘‘are you sure that you know 
just what Don Venustiano won’t answer?” 

“TI know that he won’t answer these,” he replied, in- 
dicating four or five which dealt rather specifically with 
the platform of the Constitutionalist government: such 
as land distribution, direct elections, and the right of 
suffrage among the peons. 

“TY will bring back your answers in twenty-four 
hours,” he said. “Now I will take you to see the Chief ; 
but you must promise me this: that you will not ask 
him any questions,—that you will simply go into the 
room, shake hands with him, and say ‘How do you do,’ 
and leave again immediately.” 

I promised, and, together with another reporter, fol- 
lowed him across the square to the beautiful little yel- 
low municipal palace. We stood a while in the patio. 
The place was thronged with self-important Mexicans 
button-holing other self-important Mexicans who 
rushed from door to door with portfolios and bundles 
of papers. Occasionally, when the door of the De- 
partment of the Secretaryship opened, a roar of type- 
writers smote our ears. Officers in uniform stood about 
the portico waiting for orders. General Obregon, 


271 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Commander of the Army of Sonora, was outlining in 
a loud voice the plans for his march south upon Guada- | 
lajara. He started for Hermosillo three days after- 
ward, and marched his army four hundred miles 
through a friendly country in three months. Although 
Obregon had shown no startling capacity for leader- 
ship, Carranza had made him General-in-Chief of the 
Army of the North-West, with a rank equal to Villa’s. 
Talking to him was a stout, red-haired Mexican woman 
in a black satin princess dress embroidered with jet, 
with a sword at her side. She was Colonel Ramona 
Flores, Chief-of-Staff to the Constitutionalist General 
Carrasco, who operates in Tepic. Her husband had 
been killed while an officer in the first Revolution, leav- 
ing her a gold-mine, with the proceeds of which she 
had raised a regiment and taken the field. Against | 
the wall lay two sacks of gold ingots which she had 
brought north to purchase arms and uniforms for her 
troops. Polite ‘American concession-seekers shifted 
from one foot to the other, hat in hand. The ever- 
present arms and ammunition drummers poured into 
the ears of whoever would listen, praises of their guns 
and bullets. 

Four armed sentries stood at the palace doors, and 
others lounged around the patio. There were no more 
in sight, except two who flanked a little door half-way 
down the corridor. ‘These men seemed more intelli- 
gent than the others. Anybody who passed was scru- 
tinized carefully, and those who paused at the door 
were questioned according to some thorough formula. 
Every two hours this guard was changed; the relief 


272 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


was in charge of a general, and a long colloquy took 
place before the change was effected. 
“What room is that?” I asked Sefior Fabela. 
“That is the office of the First Chief of the Revolu- 


tion,” he answered. 


I waited for perhaps an hour, and during that time 
I noticed that nobody entered the room except Sefior 
Fabela and those he took with him. Finally he came 
over to me and said: 

“All right. The First Chief will see you now.” 

We followed him. The soldiers on guard threw up 
| their rifles. 

“Who are these sefiores?” asked one. 

“It’s all right. They are friends,” answered Fa- 
bela, and opened the door. 

It was so dark within that at first we could see 
nothing. Over the two windows blinds were drawn. 
On one side was a bed, still unmade, and on the other 
a small table covered with papers, upon which stood 
a tray containing the remains of breakfast. A tin 
bucket full of ice with two or three bottles of wine 
stood in a corner. As our eyes became accustomed to 
the light, we saw the gigantic, khaki-clad figure of 
Don Venustiano Carranza sitting in a big chair. There 
was something strange in the way he sat there, with 
his hands on the arms of the chair, as if he had been 
placed in it and told not to move. He did not seem 
to be thinking, nor to have been working,—you 
couldn’t imagine him at that table. You got the im- 
pression of a vast, inert body—a statue. 


273 


INSURGENT MEXICO i 


He rose to meet us, a towering figure, seven feet tall 
it seemed. I noticed with a kind of shock that in that 
dark room he wore smoked glasses; and, although 
ruddy and full-cheeked, I felt that he was not well,—_ 
the thing you feel about tuberculous patients. That_ 
tiny, dark room, where the First Chief of the Revolu- | 
tion slept and ate and worked, and from which he 
hardly ever emerged, seemed too small—like a cell. 

Fabela had entered with us. He introduced us one 
by one to Carranza, who smiled a vacant, expression- 
less smile, bowed slightly, and shook our hands. We 
all sat down. Indicating the other reporter, who could 
not speak Spanish, Fabela said: 

‘These gentlemen have come to greet you on behalf 
of the great newspapers which they represent. This 
gentleman says that he desires to present his respect- 
ful wishes for your success.” | 

Carranza bowed again slightly, and rose as Fabela 
stood up, as if to indicate that the interview was 
over. | 

“Allow me to assure the gentlemen,” he said, “‘of 
my grateful acceptance of their good wishes.” 

Again we all shook hands; but as I took his hand I 
said in Spanish: 

“Sefior Don Venustiano, my paper is your friend 
and the friend of the Constitutionalists.” 

He stood there as before, a huge mask of a man. 
But as I spoke he stopped smiling. His expression 
remained as vacant as before, but suddenly he began 
to speak: 

“To the United States I say the Benton case is none 

274 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


of your business. Benton was a British subject. I 
will answer to the delegates of Great Britain when 
‘they come to me with representations of their govern- 
ment. Why should they not come to me? England 
now has an Ambassador in Mexico City, who accepts 
invitations to dinner from Huerta, takes off his hat 
to him, and shakes hands with him! 

“When Madero was murdered the foreign powers 
flocked to the spot like vultures to the dead, and fawned 
upon the murderer because they had a few subjects in 
the Republic who were petty tradesmen doing a dirty 
little business.” 

The First Chief ended as abruptly as he had be- 
gun, with the same immobility of expression, but he 
clenched and unclenched his hands and gnawed his 
mustaches. Fabela hurriedly made a move toward 
the door. 

“The gentlemen are very grateful to you for hav- 
ing received them,” he said, nervously. But Don Ve- 
nustiano paid no attention to him. Suddenly he be- 
gan again, his voice pitched a little higher and louder: 

“These cowardly nations thought they could se- 
cure advantages by standing in with the government 
of the usurper. But the rapid advancement of the 
Constitutionalists showed them their error, and now 
they find themselves in a predicament.” 

Fabela was plainly nervous. 

“When does the Torreon campaign begin?” he asked, 
attempting to change the subject. 

“The killing of Benton was due to a vicious attack 
on Villa by an enemy of the Revolutionists,” roared 


275 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


the First Chief, speaking louder and louder and more 
rapidly; “and England, the bully of the world, finds 
herself unable to deal with us unless she humiliates 
herself by sending a representative to the Constitu-— 
tionalists; so she tried to use the United States as a 
cat’s paw. More shame to the United States,” he 
cried, shaking his fists, “that she allowed herself to 
join with these infamous Powers!” | 

The unhappy Fabela made another attempt to dam 
the dangerous torrent. But Carranza took a step for- 
ward, and, raising his arm, shouted: 

“T tell you that, if the United States intervenes in 
Mexico upon this petty excuse, intervention will not 
accomplish what it thinks, but will provoke a war 
which, besides its own consequences, will deepen a pro- 
found hatred between the United States and the whole 
of Latin America, a hatred which will endanger the 
- entire political future of the United States!” 

He ceased talking on a rising note, as if something 
inside had cut off his speech. I tried to think that 
here was the voice of aroused Mexico thundering at 
her enemies; but it seemed like nothing so much as a 
slightly senile old man, tired and irritated. 

Then we were outside in the sunlight, with Sefior 
Fabela agitatedly telling me not to publish what I had 
heard,—or, at least, to let him see the dispatch. 


I stayed at Nogales a day or two longer. The next 
day after my interview, the typewritten paper upon 
which my questions had been printed was returned to 
me; the answers written in five different handwritings. 


276 


CARRANZA—AN IMPRESSION 


Newspaper men were in high favor at Nogales; they 
were treated always with the utmost courtesy by the 
members of the Provisional Cabinet; but they never 
seemed to reach the First Chief. I tried often to get 
from these Cabinet members the least expression of 
‘what their plans were for the settlement of the troubles 
which caused the Revolution; but they seemed to have 


none, except a Constitutional Government. During 
all the times I talked with them I never detected one 
gleam of sympathy for, or understanding of, the peons. 
Now and again I surprised quarrels about who was go- 
ing to fill the high posts of the new Mexican Govern- 
ment. Villa’s name was hardly ever mentioned; when 
it was it was in this manner: 

“We have every confidence in Villa’s loyalty and 
obedience.” 

“As a fighting man Villa has done very well—very 
well, indeed. But he should not attempt to mingle 
in the affairs of Government; because, of course, you 
know, Villa is only an ignorant peon.” 

“He has said many foolish things and made many 
mistakes which we will have to remedy.” 

And scarcely a day passed but what Carranza would 
give out a statement from headquarters: 

“There is no misunderstanding between General Villa 
and myself. He obeys my orders without question, as 
any common soldier. It is unthinkable that he would 
do anything else.” 


I spent a good deal of time loafing around the Mu- 
nicipal Palace; but I never saw Carranza again but 


Q77 


. 


once. It was toward sunset, and most of the Generals, 
drummers, and politicians had gone to dinner. I 
lounged on the edge of the fountain in the middle of 
the patio, talking with some soldiers. Suddenly the 
door of that little office opened, and Carranza him- 

self stood framed in it, arms hanging loosely by his 

sides, his fine old head thrown back, as he stared blind- 

ly over our heads across the wall to the flaming clouds 
in the west. We stood up and bowed, but he didn’t 

notice us. Walking with slow steps, he came out and 

went along the portico toward the door of the palace. 

The two guards presented arms. As he passed they 
shouldered their rifles and fell in behind him. At the 
doorway he stopped and stood there a long time, look- 
ing out on the street. The four sentries jumped to 

attention. ‘The two men behind him grounded their 
arms and stopped. The First Chief of the Revolu- 

tion clasped his hands behind his back, his fingers 
working violently. ‘Then he turned, and pacing be- 

tween the two guards, went back to the little dark 
room. 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


wi ae fsb nie 1 ; j if ef is f¥,' 4 ) i “ Papa Mica ai wh rib 
’ 4 d ; mae ‘ J yy var erl'e yA i 
‘ . 


PART SIX 
MEXICAN NIGHTS 
grat y bY et 


CHAPTER I 


EL COSMOPOLITA 


gambling hell. It used to be owned by Jacob 

La Touche—“The Turk”—a fat shambling 
man, who came to Chihuahua barefooted with a dancing 
bear twenty-five years ago, and became many times a 
millionaire. He owned an extravagant residence on 
the Paseo Bolivar, which was never called anything 
but “The Palace of Tears,” because it was built with 
the proceeds of the Turk’s gambling concessions, which 
ruined many families. But the wicked old man slunk 
away with Mercado’s retreating Federal army; and 
when Villa came to Chihuahua he gave “The Palace of 
Tears” to General Ortega as a Christmas present, and 
confiscated El] Cosmopolita. 

Having a few idle pesos from my expense account, 
we used to frequent El Cosmopolita. Johnny Roberts 
and I stopped on our way from the hotel to take a 
few hot Tom-and-Jerries at a Chinese bar, run by a 
hoary Mongolian named Chee Lee. From there we 
proceeded to the gaming tables with the leisurely air 
of Russian Grand Dukes at Monte Carlo. 

One entered first a long, low room, lighted with 
three smoky lanterns, where the roulette game was. 


281 


Ky COSMOPOLITA is Chihuahua’s fashionable 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


Above the table was a sign which read: 

“Please do not get on the roulette table with your 
feet.” 

It was a vertical wheel, not a horizontal one, 
bristling with spikes which caught a flexible steel strip 
and finally stopped the wheel opposite a number. Each 
way the table extended twelve feet, always crowded 
with at least five rows of small boys, peons, and sol- 
diers—excited and gesticulating, tossing a rain of 
small bills on the numbers and colors, and arguing vio- 
lently over the winnings. Those who lost would set 
up terrible screams of rage as the croupier raked their 
money into the drawer, and often the wheel was quiet 
for three-quarters of an hour while some player, who 
had lost ten cents, exhausted his vocabulary upon the 
treasurer, the owner of the place and his ancestors and 
descendants ten generations each way, and upon God 
and his family, for allowing such injustice to go un- 
punished. Finally he would take himself off, mutter- 
ing ominously: “4 ver! We shall see!” while the others 
would sympathetically make way for him, murmuring: 
“Ah! Que mala suerte!” | 

Near where the croupier sat was a worn place in 
the cloth with a small ivory button in the center. And_ 
when anyone was winning largely at the wheel the 
croupier would press this little button, which stopped 
the wheel where he wished, until the winner was dis-_ 
couraged from playing further. This was looked upon 
as perfectly legitimate by all present, since, carrambal 
there is no sense in operating a gambling house at a 
loss! | 


282 


EL COSMOPOLITA 


The most amazing diversity of money was used. 
Silver and copper had long since been forced out of 
circulation in Chihuahua because of revolutionary 
hard times. But there were still some Mexican bank- 
bills; besides those there was fiat money, printed on 
ordinary writing-paper by the Constitutionalist army, 
and worth nothing; scrip issued by the mining com- 
panies; I. O. U.’s; notes of hand; mortgages; and a 
hundred different valés of various railroads, planta- 
tions, and public service corporations. 

But the roulette table did not long interest us. 
‘There was not enough action for your money. So 
we shouldered our way into a small room, blue with 
‘smoke, where a perpetual poker game was going at a 
fan-shaped, baize-covered table. At’a little recess at 
‘the straight side of the table sat the dealer; chairs 
‘were distributed around the circumference where the 


players sat. One played against the bank, the dealer 
scraping into the drawer a tenth of every pot— 
‘the house’s commission. Whenever anyone began to 
plunge, and displayed a large wad, the dealer would 
give a shrill, penetrating whistle and two suave gen- 
‘tlemen, who were employed by the house, would come 
‘running and take a hand. There was no limit as long 
‘as you had chips, or if your stack was underlaid with 
bank-bills. The gentleman in possession of the “buck” 
shad the say whether it was to be draw poker (cerrado) 
or stud (abierto). Stud was the most fun, because 
a Mexican could never realize that the next card 
would not give him a magnificent hand, and he bet 


283 


| 
| 


~ 2 eed 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


increasing amounts on every card with wildly growing 
excitement. 

The strict rules of the American game, which so re- 
strict freedom of action, were absent here. Johnny 
and I would lift a corner of our cards as soon as they 
were dealt, to show each other. And when I seemed 
to be drawing ahead Johnny would impulsively push 
his whole stack over to me; with the next card Johnny’s, 
hand would seem to have more promise than mine, 
and I would push both stacks back to him. By the 
time the last card was dealt all the chips would be 
laying neutrally between us, and whoever had the best 
hand bet our entire joint capital. 

Of course nobody objected to this way of playing, 
but to offset it the dealer would whistle shrilly to the 
two house players and slyly deal them each a hand off 
the bottom of the pack. 

Meanwhile a Chinaman would be dashing madly be- 
tween the table and a lunch-counter across the street, 
bearing sandwiches, chile con carne, and cups of cof-_ 
fee to the players, who ate and drank loudly during 
the game, and spilled coffee and food into the jack-pot. | 

Occasionally some player who had traveled exten- | 
sively in foreign lands got up and walked around his | 
chair to dispel a run of bad luck; or asked for a new 
deck with an off-hand, expensive air. The dealer would 
bow politely, sweep the deck into his drawer and pro-. 
duce another one. He had only two decks of cards 
in the house. Both were about a year old, and largely | 
decorated with the meals of former players. 

Of course, the American game was played. But 


284 


EL COSMOPOLITA 


there would sometimes enter a Mexican who was not 

intimately acquainted with the subtleties of the Ameri- 

can deck. In the Mexican deck, for example, the seven, 

eight and nine spots are omitted. One such person, 
-a pompous, pretentious Mexican, sat in one night 
just as I had called for a hand of stud. Before the 
dealer could whistle, the stranger had produced a great 
wad of money—all sorts, sizes and denominations, and 
‘bought one hundred pesos’ worth of chips. The game 
was on. I drew three hearts in rapid succession, se- 
cured Roberts’ pile, and began to play for a flush. 
The stranger gazed at his cards for a long time as if 
they were new to him. Then he flushed the deep red 
: of intense excitement, and pushed in fifteen dollars. 


i) 


‘With the succeeding card he turned quite pale and 


| pushed in twenty-five dollars, and when he looked at 
his last card he turned red again, and bet fifty dollars. 
__ By some miracle I had filled a flush. But the man’s 
wild betting scared me. I knew that a flush was good 
for almost anything in stud poker, but I couldn’t keep 


up with that pace, so I passed the bet to him. He rose 

at that and protested violently. 

“How do you mean ‘Pass the bet?’ ” he cried, shak- 
ing both fists. 

It was explained to him, and he subsided. 

“Very well, then,” he said. “Since this fifteen dol- 
lars is all I have, and you will not let me buy any 
more chips, I will bet everything,” and he pushed it 
into the center. 

I called him. 

“What have you got?” he almost screamed, leaning 


! Q85 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


trembling over the table. I spread out my flush. With 
an excited laugh he banged the table a great blow. 

“Straight!” he cried—and turned up four, five, six, 
ten, Jack. & 

He had already reached out an arm to gather in the - 
money when the entire table burst into a clamor. 

“It is wrong!” 

“It is not a straight!” 

“The money belongs to the Gringo!’ 4 

He lay sprawled out on the table with both arms — 
round the pot. t 

“How?” he cried sharply, looking up. “It is not a 
straight? Look here—four, five, six, ten, knave!” 

The dealer interposed: 

“But it should have been four, five, six, seven, eight,” 
he said. “In the American pack there are seven, eight 
and nine.” , 

““How ridiculous!’ sneered the man. “I have played 
cards all my life, and never, never have I seen a seven, 


eight or nine!” e 
By this time most of the roulette table throng had 
swarmed in at the door. ‘They added their clamor to 
ours. : 
“Of course it is not a straight!” | 
“Of course it must be! Is there not four, five, six, 
ten, knave?” / 
“But the American pack is different!” j 
“But this is not the United States. This is Mex- 
ico !”? 
“Hey! Pancho!” shouted the dealer. “Go at once 
and notify the police!” “ 


286 


EL COSMOPOLITA 


The situation remained the same. My opponent 
still lay upon the table with the jack-pot in his arms. 
_A perfect pandemonium of argument filled the place; 
in some cases it had developed a personal note, and 
hands were stealing to hips. I unobtrusively pushed 
my chair against the wall. Presently the Chief of Po- 
lice arrived with four or five gendarmes. He was a 
large, unshaven man whose mustaches twisted up to 
his eyes; dressed in a loose, dirty uniform with red 
plush epaulettes. As he came in everybody began ex- 
plaining to him at once. The dealer made a megaphone 
out of his hands and shouted through the din; the man 
on the table turned up a livid face, insisting shrilly 
that it was an outrage for Gringo rules to spoil a per- 
fectly good Mexican game like stud poker. 

The chief listened, curling his mustaches, his chest 
swelling with the importance of being the deciding fac- 
tor in an argument involving such large sums of money. 
He looked at me. I said nothing, but bowed politely. 
He returned the bow. Then, turning to his policeman 
he pointed a dramatic finger at the man at the table. 

“Arrest this goat!” he said. 

It was a fitting climax. Shrieking and protesting, 
the unfortunate Mexican was led into a corner, where 
he stood facing the table. 

“The money belongs to this gentleman,” continued 
the Chief of Police. ‘As for you, you evidently do 
not understand the rudiments of this game. I have a 
0 Gaia! 

“Perhaps,” said Roberts, politely, nudging me, 

287 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“the Sefior Captain would like to show the gentle- 
man. Ee 


“T should be only too glad to loan him a few chips,” — 


I added, raking in the pile. 
“Oiga!l’”’ said the Chief. “I will be glad to do so. 
Superlative thanks, sir!” 


He drew up a chair, and, out of politeness, the buck 


was given to him. 

“Abierto!” he said, with the air of an old hand. 

We played. The Chief of Police won. He rattled 
his chips like a professional gambler, slapping the buck 
to his neighbor, and we played again. 

“You see,” said the Chief of Police, “it is easy if 
you observe the rules.” He twisted his mustache, ruf- 
fled the cards, and pushed in twenty-five dollars. He 
won again. 


After some time one of the policemen approached 


him respectfully and said: 


“I beg you pardon, mi capitan, but what shall we © 


do with the prisoner?” 


“Oh!” said the Chief, staring. He waved his hand 


casually. “Just release him and return to your sta- 
tions.” 


Long after the last wheel had been spun on the 


roulette table, the lamps blown out, and the most 


feverish gambler ejected into the street, we sat play- — 


ing in the poker room. Roberts and I were down to 
about three pesos apiece. We yawned and nodded 


with sleepiness. But the Chief of Police had his coat 
off and was crouched like a tiger over his cards. Now 


he was losing steadily. .. . 
288 


HAPPY VALLEY, 


CHAPTER II 


HAPPY VALLEY 


T happened to be the day of a fiesta, and, 
of course, nobody worked in Valle Allegre. The 
cock-fight was to take place at high noon in the 

open space back of Catarino Cabrera’s drinking shop 
—almost directly in front of Dionysio Aguirre’s, where 
the long burro pack-trains rest on their mountain 
journeys, and the muleteers swap tales over their te- 
quila. At one, the sunny side of the dry arroyo that 
is called a street was lined with double rows of squat- 
ting peons—silent, dreamily sucking their corn-husk 
cigarettes as they waited. The bibulously inclined 
drifted in and out of Catarino’s, whence came a cloud 
of tobacco smoke and a strong reek of aguardiente. 
Small boys played leap-frog with a large yellow sow, 
and on opposite sides of the arroyo the competing 
roosters, tethered by the leg, crew defiantly. One of 
the owners, an ingratiating, business-like professional, 
wearing sandals and one cerise sock, stalked around 
with a handful of dirty bank-bills, shouting: 

“Diez pesos, sefiores! Only ten dollars!” 

It was strange; nobody seemed too poor to bet ten 
dollars. It came on toward two o’clock, and still no 
one moved, except to follow the sun a few feet as it 
swung the black edge of the shadow eastward. The 
shadow was very cold, and the sun white hot. 

On the edge of the shadow lay Ignacio, the violinist, 


289 


ee 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


wrapped in a tattered serape, sleeping off a drunk, 
He can play one tune when intoxicated—Tosti’s 
“Good-Bye.” When very drunk he also remembers 
fragments of Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song.” In fact, 
he is the only high-brow musician in the whole State 
of Durango, and possesses a just celebrity. Ignacio 
used to be brilliant and industrious—his sons and 
daughters are innumerable—but the artistic tempera- 
ment was too much for him. 

The color of the street was red—deep, rich, red 
clay—and the open space where the burros stood, olive 
drab; there were brown crumbling adobe walls and 
squat houses, their roofs heaped high with yellow corn- 
stalks or hung with strings of red peppers. A gi- 
gantic green mesquite tree, with roots like a chicken’s 
foot, thatched on every branch with dried hay and 
corn. Below, the town fell steeply down the arroyo, 
roofs tumbled together like blocks, with flowers and 
grass growing on them, blue feathers of smoke waving 
from the chimneys, and occasional palms sticking up_ 
between. They fell away to the yellow plain where 
the horse-races are run, and beyond that the barren’ 
mountains crouched, tawny as lions, then faintly blue, 
then purple and wrinkled, notched and jagged across 
the fierce, bright sky. Straight down and away 
through the arroyo one saw a great valley, like an 
elephant’s hide, where the heat-waves buck-jumped. 

A lazy smoke of human noises floated up: roosters” 
crowing, pigs grunting, burros giving great racking 
sobs, the rustling crackle of dried corn-stalks being { 
shaken out of the mesquite tree, a woman singing as_ 


290 


HAPPY VALLEY 


she mashed her corn on the stones, the wailing of a 
myriad of babies. 

The sun fairly blistered. My friend Atanacio sat 
upon the sidewalk thinking of nothing. His dirty feet 
were bare except for sandals, his mighty sombrero was 
of a faded dull brick color embroidered with tarnished 
gold braid, and his serape was of the pottery blue one 
sees in Chinese rugs, and decorated with yellow suns. 
He rose when he saw me. We removed our hats and 
embraced after the Mexican fashion, patting each other 
on the back with one hand while we shook the other. 

“Buenos tardes, amigo,” he murmured. “How do 
you seat yourself?” 

“Very well, much thanks. And you? How have 
they treated you?” 

“Delicious. Superlative thanks. I have longed to 
see you again.” 

“And your family? How are they?” (It is consid- 
ered more delicate in Mexico not to ask about one’s 
wife, because so few people are married.) 

“Their health is of the best. Great, great thanks. 
And your family?” 

“Bien, bien! I saw your son with the army at Jime- 
nez. He gave me many, many remembrances of you. 
Would you desire a cigarette?” 

“Thanks. Permit me, alight. You are in Valle Al- 
legre many days?” 

“For the fiesta only, sefior.” 

“T hope your visit is fortunate, sefior. My house is 
at your orders.” 

“Thanks. How is it that I did not see you at the 


291 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


baile last night, sefior? You, who were always such 
a sympathetic dancer!” 

“Unhappily Juanita is gone to visit her mother in 
El Oro, and now, therefore, I am a platonico. I grow 
too old for the sefioritas.” 

“Ah, no, sefior. A caballero of your age is in the 
prime of life. But tell me. Is it true what I hear, 
that the Maderistas are now at Mapimi?” 

“Si, sefior. Soon Villa will take Torreon, they say, 
and then it is only a matter of a few months before 
the Revolution is accomplished.” 

“T think that, yes. But tell me; I have great re- 
spect for your opinion. Which cock would you advise 
me to bet on?” 

We approached the combatants and looked them 
over, while their owners clamored in our ears. They 
sat upon the curbing negligently herding their birds 
apart. It was getting toward three of the afternoon. 

“But will there be a cock-fight?” I asked them. 

“Quien sabe?” drawled one. 

The other murmured that possibly it would be 
manana. It developed that the steel spurs had been 
forgotten in El] Oro, and that a small boy had gone 
after them on a burro. It was six miles over the 
mountains to El Oro. 

However, no one was in any hurry, so we sat down 
also. Appeared then Catarino Cabrera, the saloon 
keeper, and also the Constitutionalist jefe politico of 
Valle Allegre, very drunk, walking arm in arm with 
Don Priciliano Saucedes, the former jefe under the 
Diaz government. Don Priciliano is a fine-looking, 


292 


HAPPY VALLEY 


white-haired old Castilian who used to lend money to 
the peons at twenty per cent. Don Catarino is a for- 
mer schoolmaster, an ardent Revolutionist—he lends 
money at a slightly less rate of usury to the same 
parties. Don Catarino wears no collar, but he sports 
a revolver and two cartridge-belts. Don Priciliano 
during the first Revolution was deprived of most of his 
property by the Maderistas of the town, and then 
strapped naked upon his horse and beaten upon his 
bare back with the flat of a sword. i" 
“Aie!”” he says to my question. “The Revolution! 
I have most of the Revolution upon my back!” 
And the two pass on to Don Priciliano’s house, 
where Catarino is courting a beautiful daughter. 
Then, with the thunder of hoofs, dashes up the gay 
and gallant young Jesus Triano, who was a Captain 
under Orozco. But Valle Allegre is a three days’ ride 
from the railroad, and politics are not a burning issue 
there; so Jesus rides his stolen horse with impunity 
around the streets. He is a large young man with 
shining teeth, a rifle and bandolier, and leather trou- 
sers fastened up the side with buttons as big as dol- 
lars—his spurs are twice as big. They say that his 
dashing ways and the fact that he shot Emetario 
Flores in the back have won him the hand of Dolores, 
youngest daughter of Manuel Paredes, the charcoal 
contractor. He plunges down the arroyo at a gal- 
lop, his horse tossing bloody froth from the cruel curb. 
Captain Adolfo Melendez, of the Constitutionalist 
army, slouches around the corner in a new, bottle- 
green corduroy uniform. He wears a handsome gilded 


293 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


sword which once belonged to the Knights of Pythias. 
Adolfo came to Valle Allegre on a two weeks’ leave, 
which he prolonged indefinitely in order to take to 
himself a wife—the fourteen-year-old daughter of a vil- 
lage aristocrat. They say that his wedding was mag- 
nificent beyond belief, two priests officiating and the 


service lasting an hour more than necessary. But this © 


may have been good economy on Adolfo’s part, since he 


already had one wife in Chihuahua, another in Parral, 
and a third in Monterey, and, of course, had to pla- 


cate the parents of the bride. He had now been away > 


from his regiment three months, and told me simply 
that he thought they had forgotten all about him by 
this time. 


At half-past four a thunder of cheers announced the — 
arrival of the small boy with the steel spurs. It seems — 
that he had got into a card game at El Oro, and had > 


temporarily forgotten his errand. 


But, of course, nothing was said about it. He had 


arrived, which was the important thing. We formed a — 
wide ring in the open space where the burros stood, and — 
the two owners began to “throw” their birds. But at 


the first onslaught the fowl upon which we had all bet 


our money spread its wings, and, to the astonishment — 


of the assembled company, soared screaming over the 


mesquite tree and disappeared toward the mountains. — 


Ten minutes later the two owners unconcernedly di- 


vided the proceeds before our eyes, and we strolled 


home well content. 


294 


HAPPY VALLEY 


Fidencio and I dined at Charlie Chee’s hotel. 

Throughout Mexico, in every little town, you will find 
Chinamen monopolizing the hotel and restaurant busi- 
ness. Charlie, and his cousin Foo, were both married 
to the daughters of respectable Mexican villagers. No 
one seemed to think that strange. Mexicans appear * 
to have no race prejudices whatever. Captain Adolfo, 
in a bright yellow khaki uniform and another sword, 
brought his bride, a faintly pretty brown girl with 
her hair in a bang, wearing chandelier lusters as ear- 
rings. Charlie banged down in front of each of us a 
quart bottle of aguardiente, and, sitting down at the 
table, flirted politely with Sefiora Melendez, while Foo 
served dinner, enlivened with gay social chatter in pid- 
gin Mexican. 

It seemed that there was to be a baile at Don Pri- 
ciliano’s that evening, and Charlie politely offered to 
teach Adolfo’s wife a new step which he had learned in 
El Paso, called the Turkey Trot. This he did until 
Adolfo began to look sullen and announced that he 
didn’t think he would go to Don Priciliano’s, since he 
considered it a bad thing for young wives to be seen 
‘much in public. Charlie and Foo also tendered their 
regrets, because several of their countrymen were due 
in the village that evening from Parral, and said that 
they would, of course, want to raise a little Chinese 
hell together. 

So Fidencio and I finally departed, after solemnly 
promising that we would return in time for the Chinese 
festivities after the dance. 

Outside, strong moonlight flooded all the village. 


295 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


The jumbled roofs were so many tipped-up silvery 
planes, and the tree-tops glistened. Like a frozen 
cataract the arroyo fell away, and the great valley be- 
yond lay drowned in rich, soft mist. The life-sounds 
quickened in the dark—excited laughter of young girls, 
a woman catching her breath at a window to the swift, 
hot torrent of a man’s speech as he leaned against the 
bars, a dozen guitars syncopating each other, a young 
buck hurrying to meet his novia, spurs ringing clear. 
It was cold. As we passed Cabrera’s door a hot, 
smoky, alcoholic breath smote us. Beyond that you 
crossed on stepping-stones the stream where the women 
wash their clothes. Climbing the other bank we saw 
the brilliant windows of Don Priciliano’s house, and 
heard the far strains of Valle Allegre’s orchestra. 

Open doors and windows were choked with men—tall, 
dark, silent peons, wrapped to the eyes in their blank- 
ets, staring at the dance with eager and solemn eyes, 
a forest of sombreros. | 

Now Fidencio had just returned to Valle Allegre — 
after a long absence, and as we stood on the outside 
of the group a tall young fellow caught sight of him, 
and, whirling his serape like a wing, he embraced my 
friend, crying: 

“Happy return, Fidencio! We looked for you many 
months !”” 

The crowd swayed and rocked like a windy wheat © 
field, blankets flapped dark against the night. They 
took up the cry: 

“Fidencio! Fidencio is here! Your Carmencita is 
inside, Fidencio. You had better look out for your 


296 


HAPPY VALLEY 


sweetheart! You can’t stay away as long as that and 
expect her to remain faithful to you!” 

Those inside caught the cry and echoed it, and the 
dance, which had just begun, stopped suddenly. The 
peons formed a lane through which we passed, patting 
us on the back with little words of welcome and af- 
fection; and at the door a dozen friends crowded for- 
ward to hug us, faces alight with pleasure. 

Carmencita, a dumpy, small Indian girl, dressed in 
a screaming blue ready-made dress that didn’t fit, 
stood over near the corner by the side of a certain 
Pablito, her partner, a half-breed youth about sixteen 
years old with a bad complexion. She affected to pay 
no attention to Fidencio’s arrival, but stood dumbly, 
with her eyes on the ground, as is proper for unmar- 
ried Mexican women. 

Fidencio swaggered among his compadres in true 
manly fashion for a few minutes, interspersing his 
conversation with loud virile oaths. Then, in a lordly 
manner, he went straight across the room to Carmen- 
cita, placed her left hand within the hollow of his 
right arm, and cried: “Well, now; let’s dance!” and the 
grinning, perspiring musicians nodded and fell to. 

There were five of them—two violins, a cornet, a 
flute and a harp. They swung into “Tres Piedras,” 
and the couples fell in line, marching solemnly round 
the room. After parading round twice they fell to 
dancing, hopping awkwardly over the rough, hard, 
packed-dirt floor with jingling spurs; when they had 
danced around the room two or three times they walked 


297 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


again, then danced, then walked, then danced, so that 
each number took about an hour. 

It was a long, low room, with whitewashed walls 
and a beamed ceiling wattled with mud above, and at 
one end was the inevitable sewing-machine, closed now, 
and converted into a sort of an altar by a tiny em- 
broidered cloth upon which burned a perpetual rush 
flame before a tawdry color print of the Virgin which 
hung on the wall. Don Priciliano and his wife, who 
was nursing a baby at her breast, beamed from chairs 
at the other end. Innumerable candles had _ been 
heated on one side and stuck against the wall all 
around, whence they trailed sooty snakes above them 
on the white. The men made a prodigious stamping 
and clinking as they danced, shouting boisterously to 
one another. ‘The women kept their eyes on the floor 
and did not speak. 

I caught sight of the pimply youth glowering with 
folded arms upon Fidencio from his corner; and as I 
stood by the door, fragments of the peons’ conversa- 
tion floated in to me: 

“Fidencio should not have stayed away so long.” 

“Carramba! See the way Pablito scowls there. He 
thought surely Fidencio was dead and that Carmencita 
was his own!” 

And then a hopeful voice: 

“Perhaps there will be trouble!” 

The dance finally ended and Fidencio led his be- 
trothed correctly back to her seat against the wall. 
The music stopped. The men poured out into the 
night where, in the flare of a torch, the owner of the 


298 


HAPPY VALLEY 


losing rooster sold bottles of strong drink. We 
toasted each other boisterously in the sharp dark. The 
mountains around stood dazzling in the moon. And 
then, for the intervals between dances were very short, 
we heard the music erupt again, volcanically and exu- 
berantly, into a waltz. The center of twenty curi- 
ous and enthusiastic youths—for he had traveled—Fi- 
dencio strutted back into the room. He went straight 
to Carmencita, but as he led her out upon the floor 
Pablito glided up behind, pulling out a large obsolete 
revolver. A dozen shouts rang: 

“Cuidado, Fidencio! Look out!’’ 

He whirled, to see the revolver pointed at his stom- 
ach. For a moment no one moved. Fidencio and his 
rival looked at each other with wrathful eyes. There 
was a subdued clicking of automatics everywhere as 
_the gentlemen drew and cocked their weapons, for some 
_of them were friends of Pablito’s. I heard low voices 
muttering: 

“Porfirio! Go home and get my shotgun!” 

“Victoriano! My new rifle! It lies on the bureau in 
mother’s room.” 

A shoal of small boys like flying-fish scattered 
through the moonlight to get firearms. Meanwhile, the 
_ status quo was preserved. The peons had squatted out 
of the range of fire, so that just their eyes showed 
above the window-sills, where they watched proceed- 
ings with joyous interest. Most of the musicians 
were edging toward the nearest window; the harpist, 
however, had dropped down behind his instrument. 
Don Priciliano and his wife, still nursing the infant, 


299 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


rose and majestically made their way to some interior 


part of the house. It was none.of their business; be- 


sides, they did not wish to interfere with the young 
folks’ pleasure. 

With one arm Fidencio carefully pushed Carmencita 
away, holding his other hand poised like a claw. In the 
dead silence he said: 

“You little goat! Don’t stand there pointing that 
thing at me if you’re afraid to shoot it! Pull the trig- 
ger while I am unarmed! I am not afraid to die, even 


at the hand of a weak little fool who doesn’t know 


when to use a gun!” 


The boy’s face twisted hatefully, and I thought he 


was going to shoot. 


“Ah!” murmured the peons. “Now! Now is the 


time !”” 

But he didn’t. After a few minutes his hand way- 
ered, and with a curse he jammed the pistol back into 
his pocket. The peons straightened up again and 
crowded disappointedly around the doors and win- 
dows. The harpist got up and began to tune his harp. 
There was much thrusting back of revolvers into 
holsters, and the sprightly social conversation grew up 
again. By the time the small boys arrived with a per- 
fect arsenal of rifles and shotguns, the dance had been 
resumed. So the guns were stacked in a corner. 


As long as Carmencita claimed his amorous atten- 
tion and there was a prospect of friction, Fidencio 
stayed. He swaggered among the men and basked in 

300 


HAPPY VALLEY 


the admiration of the ladies, outdancing them all in 
speed, abandon and noise. 

But he soon tired of that, and the excitement of 
meeting Carmencita palled upon him. So he went out 
into the moonlight again and up the arroyo, to take 
part in Charlie Chee’s celebration. 

As we approached the hotel we were conscious of a 
curious low moaning sound which seemed akin to mu- 
sic. The dinner-table had been removed from the din- 
ing-room into the street, and around the room turkey- 
trotted Foo and another Celestial. A barrel of 
aguardiente had been set up on a trestle in one cor- 
ner, and beneath it sprawled Charlie himself, in his 
mouth a glass tube which syphoned up into the barrel. 
‘A tremendous wooden box of Mexican cigarettes had 
been smashed open on one side, the packages tumbling 
‘out upon the floor. In other parts of the room two 
more Chinamen slept the profound sleep of the very 
drunk, wrapped in blankets. The two who danced sang 
meanwhile their own version of a once popular ragtime 
song called “Dreamy Eyes.” Against this marched 
magnificently “The Pilgrim’s Chorus” from Tann- 
haiuser, rendered by a phonograph set up in the 
kitchen. Charlie removed the glass tube from his 
mouth, put a thumb over it, and welcomed us with 
a hymn which he sang as follows: 


“Pooll for the shore, sailor, 

Pooll for the shore! 

Heed not the lowling lave 

But pooll for the shore!” 
301 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


He surveyed us with a bleary eye, and remarked: 
“Bledlau! Je’ Calist is wid us here toni!’ 

After which he returned the syphon to his mouth, 

We blended into these festivities. Fidencio offered 
to exhibit the steps of a new Spanish fandango, the 
way it was danced by the damned “grasshoppers” 
(as Mexicans call the Spaniards). He stamped bel- 
lowing around the room, colliding with the Chinamen, 
and roaring “La Paloma.” Finally, out of breath, he 
collapsed upon a nearby chair, and began to descant 
upon the many charms of Adolfo’s bride, whom he had 
seen for the first time that day. He declared that it 
was a shame for so young and blithe a spirit to be tied 
to a middle-aged man; he said that he himself repre- 
sented youth, strength and gallantry, and was a much 
more fitting mate for her. He added that as the even- 
ing advanced he found that he desired her more and 
more. Charlie Chee, with the glass tube in his mouth, 
nodded intelligently at each of these statements. I had 
a happy thought. Why not send for Adolfo and his 
wife and invite them to join our festivities? The 
Chinamen asleep on the floor were kicked awake and 
their opinion asked. Since they could understand 
neither Spanish nor English, they answered fluently in 
Chinese. Fidencio translated. 

“They say,” he said, “that Charlie ought to be sent 
with the invitation.” c 

We agreed to that. Charlie rose, while Foo took 
his place at the glass tube. He declared that he would 
invite them in the most irresistible terms, and, strap- 
ping on his revolver, disappeared. 


302 


HAPPY VALLEY 


Ten minutes later we heard five shots. We dis- 
cussed the matter at length, not understanding why 
there should be any artillery at that time of night, ex- 
cept that probably two guests returning from 
the baile were murdering each other before going 
to bed. Charlie took a long time, in the meanwhile, 
and we were just considering the advisability of send- 
_ ing out an expedition to find him when he returned. 

“Well, how about it, Charlie?” I asked. ‘Will they 
come?” 

“{f don’t think so,” he replied doubtfully, swaying 
in the doorway. 

“Did you hear the shooting?” asked Fidencio. 

“Yes, very close,” said Charlie. “Foo, if you will 
kindly get out from under that tube... .” 

“What was it?” we asked. 

““Well,”? said Charlie, “I knocked at Adolfo’s door 
and said we were having a party down here and wanted 
him to come. He shot at me three times and I shot 
at him twice.” 

So saying, Charlie seized Foo by the leg and com- 
posedly lay down under the glass tube again. 


We must have stayed there some hours after that. 
I remember that toward morning Ignacio came in and 
played us Tosti’s “Good-bye,” to which all the China- 
men danced solemnly around. 

At about four o’clock Atanacio appeared. He burst 
open the door and stood there very white, with a gun 
in one hand. 

“Friends,” he said, “a most disagreeable thing has 


303 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


happened. My wife, Juanita, returned from her 
mother’s about midnight on an ass. She was stopped 
on the road by a man muffled up in a poncho, who 
gave her an anonymous letter in which were detailed 
all my little amusements when I last went for recreation 
to Juarez. I have seen the letter. It is astonishingly 
accurate! It tells how I went to supper with Maria 
and then home with her. It tells how I took Ana to 
the bull-fight. It describes the hair, complexion and 
disposition of all those other ladies and how much 
money I spent upon them. Carramba! It is exact to 
a cent! 

*““When she got home I happened to be down at Ca- 
tarino’s taking a cup with an old friend. This mys- 
terious stranger appeared at the kitchen door with 
another letter in which he said I had three more wives 
in Chihuahua, which, God knows, is not true, since I 
only have one! 

“It is not that I care, amigos, but these things have 
upset Juanita horribly. Of course, I denied these 
charges, but, valgame Dios! women are so unreason- 
able! ; 

“TY hired Dionysio to watch my house, but he has 
gone to the baile, and so, arousing and dressing my 
small son, that he may carry me word of any further 
outrages, I have come down to seek your help in pre- 
serving my home from this disgrace.” 

We declared ourselves willing to do anything for 
Atanacio—anything, that is, that promised excitement. 
We said that it was horrible, that the evil stranger 
ought to be exterminated. 


304 


HAPPY VALLEY 


“Who could it be?” 

Atanacio replied that it was probably Flores, who 
had had a baby by his wife before he married her, but 
who had never succeeded in quite capturing her affec- 
tions. We forced aguardiente upon him and he drank 
moodily. Charlie Chee was pried loose from the glass 
tube, where Foo took his place, and sent for weapons. 
And in ten minutes he returned with seven loaded revol- 
vers of different makes. 

Almost immediately came a furious pounding on the 
‘door, and Atanacio’s young son flung himself in. 

“Papa!” he cried, holding out a paper. “Here is 
another one! The man knocked at the back door, and 
when Mamma went to find out who it was she could only 
see a big red blanket covering him entirely up to the 
hair. He gave her a note and ran away, taking a loaf 
of bread off the window.” | 

With trembling hands Atanacio unfolded the paper 
and read aloud: 


Your husband is the father of forty-five small children 
in the State of Coahuila. 
(Signed) Some One Who Knows Him. 


“Mother of God!” cried Atanacio, springing to his 
feet, in a transport of grief and rage. “It is a he! 
I have always discriminated! Forward, my friends! 
Let us protect our homes!” 

Seizing our revolvers we rushed out into the night. 
We staggered panting up the steep hill to Atanacio’s 
house—sticking close together so no one would be mis- 


taken by the others for the Mysterious Stranger. Ata- 
| 305 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


nacio’s wife was lying on the bed weeping hysterically, | 
We scattered into the brush and poked into the alleys 
around the house, but nothing stirred. In a corner 
of the corral lay Dionysio, the watchman, fast asleep, : 
his rifle by his side. We passed on up the hill until we 
came to the edge of the town. Already dawn was com- 
ing. A never-ending chorus of roosters made the only 
sound, except the incredibly soft music from the baile 
at Don Priciliano’s, which would probably last all tha 
day and the next night. Afar, the big valley was like 
a great map, quiet, distinct, immense. Every wall 
corner, tree branch and grass-blade on the roofs of 
the houses were pricked out in the wonderful clear 
light of before-dawn. | 
In the distance, over the shoulder of the red moun- 
tain, went a man covered up in a red serape. 
“Aha!”? cried Atanacio. ‘There he goes!” 
And with one accord we opened up on the red 
blanket. There were five of us, and we had six shots 
apiece. They echoed fearfully among the houses and 
clapped from mountain to mountain, reproduced each 
one a hundred times. Of a sudden the village belched 
half-dressed men and women and children. They evi- 
dently thought that a new revolution was beginning. | 
A very ancient crone came out of a small brown a 
on the edge of the village rubbing her eyes. 
“Oiga!” she shouted. ‘What are you shooting at: . 
“We are trying to kill that accursed man in the 
red blanket, who is poisoning our homes and making’ 
Valle Allegre a place unfit for a decent woman to live 
in!” shouted Atanacio, taking another shot. 


306 


| 
| 
: 


LOS PASTORES 


The old woman bent her bleary eyes upon our target. 

“But,” she said gently, “that is not a bad man, 
That’s only my son going after the goats.” 

Meanwhile, the red-blanketed figure, never even look- 
ing back, continued his placid way over the top of 
the mountain and disappeared. 


CHAPTER III 
LOS PASTORES 


HE romance of gold hangs over the mountains 
of Northern Durango like an old perfume. 
There, it is rumored, was that mythical Ophir 

whence the Aztecs and their mysterious predecessors 
drew the red gold that Cortez found in the treasury 
of Moctezuma. Before the dawn of Mexican history 
the Indians scratched these barren hillsides with dull 
copper knives. You can still see the traces of their 
workings. And after them the Spaniards, with flash- 
ing, bright helmets and steel breast-plates, filled from 
these mountains the lofty treasure-ships of the In- 
dies. Almost a thousand miles from the Capital, over 
trackless deserts and fierce stony mountains, a tiny 
colorful fringe of the most brilliant civilization in 
Europe flung itself among the canyons and high peaks 
of this desolate land; and so far was it from the seat 
of change that long after Spanish rule had disappeared 
from Mexico forever, it persisted here. The Spaniards 
enslaved the Indians of the region, of course, and the 


307 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


torrent-worn, narrow valleys are still sinister with 
legend. Almost anybody around Santa Maria del Oro 
can tell you stories of the old days when men were 
flogged to death in the mines, and the Spanish over- 
seers lived like princes. 

But they were a hardy race, these mountaineers. 
They were always rebelling. There is a legend of how 
the Spaniards, finally discovering themselves alone, two 
hundred leagues from the seacoast, in the midst of an 
overwhelmingly hostile native race, attempted one night 
to leave the mountains. Fires sprang up on the high 
peaks, and the mountain villages throbbed to the sound | 
of drums. Somewhere in the narrow defiles the Span- 
iards disappeared forever. And from that time, until 
certain foreigners secured mining concessions there, 
the place had an evil name. The authority of the 
Mexican government barely reached it. 

There are two villages which were the capitals of 
the gold-seeking Spaniards in this region, and where 
the Spanish tradition is still strong: Inde, and Santa 
Maria del Oro,—usually called El Oro. Inde, the 
Spaniards romantically named from their persistent 
dream that this new world was India; Santa Maria del 
Oro was called so on the same principle that one sung 
a Te Deum in honor of bloody victory—a grateful- 
ness to heaven for the finding of red gold, Our Lady of 
the Gold. 

In El Oro one can still see the ruins of a monastery 
—they call it now, vaguely, the Collegio—the path- 
etic little arched roofs of a row of monkish cells built 
of adobe, and now fast crumbling under hot suns and 


308 


LOS PASTORES 


torrential rains. It partly surrounds what was once the 
patio of the cloister, and a great mesquite tree towers 
there over the forgotten headstone of an ancient grave, 
inscribed with the lordly name of Dofia Isabella Guz- 
man. Of course, everybody has entirely forgotten who 
Dofia Isabella was, or when she died. There still 
stands in the public square a fine old Spanish church 
with a beamed ceiling. And over the door of the tiny 
Palacio Municipal is the almost erased carving of the 
arms of some ancient Spanish house. 

Here is romance for you. But the inhabitants have 
no respect for tradition, and hardly any memory of the 
ancients who left these monuments. ‘The exuberant 
Indian civilization has entirely obliterated all traces of 
the conquistadores. 

El Oro is noted as the gayest town of all the moun- 
tain region. There are bailes almost every night, and 
far and near it is a matter of common knowledge that 
El Oro is the home of the prettiest girls in Durango. 
In El Oro, too, they celebrate feast days with more 
ebullience than in other localities. All the charcoal- 
burners and goat-herds and pack-train drivers and 
ranchers for miles around come there on holidays,—so 
that one feast-day generally means two or three with- 
out work, since there must be one day for celebrating, 
and at least another for coming and returning home. 

And what Pastorellas they have in El Oro! Once a 
year, on the Feast of the Santos Reyes, they per- 
form Los Pastores all over this part of the country. 
It is an ancient miracle play of the kind that used to 
take place all over Europe in the Renaissance,—the 


309 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


kind that gave birth to Elizabethan drama, and is now 
extinct everywhere in the world. It is handed down by 
word of mouth from mother to daughter, from the re- 
motest antiquity. It is called ‘‘Luzbel,’’ the Spanish 
for Lucifer, and depicts Perverse Man in the Midst 
of His Deadly Sin, Lucifer, the Great Antagonist of 
Souls, and the Everlasting Mercy of God Made Flesh 
in the Child Jesus. 

In most places there is only one performance of Los 
Pastores. But in El Oro there are three or four on 
the night of the Santos Reyes, and others at different 
times of the year, as the spirit moves. The cura, or 
village priest, still trains the actors. The play takes 
place no longer in the church, however. It is added 
to from generation to generation, sometimes being 
twisted to satirize persons in the village. It has be- 
come too profane, too realistic, for the Church; but 
still it points thé great moral of medieval religion. 


Fidencio and I dined early on the night of the San 
tos Reyes. Afterward, he took me along the street 
to a narrow alley-way between adobe walls, which led 
through a broken place into a tiny corral behind a 
house hung with red peppers. Under the legs of two 
meditative burros scurried dogs and chickens, a pig 
or so, and a swarm of little naked brown children. A 
wrinkled old Indian hag, smoking a cigarette made of 
an entire corn-husk, squatted upon a wooden box. 
Upon our appearance she arose, muttering toothless 
words of greeting, lifted the lid of the box, and pro- 
duced an olla full of new-made aguardiente. The dis- 


310 


LOS PASTORES 


tillery was in the kitchen. We paid her a silver peso, 
and circulated the jug among the three of us, with 
many polite wishes for health and prosperity. Over 
our heads the sunset sky yellowed and turned green, 
and a few large mountain stars blazed out. We heard 
laughter and guitars from the lower end of the town, 
‘and the uproarious shouts of the charcoal-burners fin- 
ishing their holiday strong. The old lady consumed 
much more than her share. .. . 

“Oh, mother!” said Fidencio. ‘Where are they go- 
ing to give the Pastores to-night?” 

“There are many Pastores,”’ she answered with a 
leer. ‘“‘Carramba! what a year it is for Pastores! 
There is one in the schoolhouse, and another back of 
Don Pedro’s, and another in the casa of Don Mario, 
and still another in the house of Perdita, who was mar- 
ried to Thomas Redondo, who was killed last year in 
the mines; may God have mercy on his soul!” 

“Which will be the best??? demanded Fidencio, kick- 
ing a goat which was trying to enter the kitchen. 

“Quien sabe?’”’ she shrugged vaguely. “Were my old 
bones not so twisted I would go to Don Pedro’s. But 
I would be disappointed. There are no Pastores now- 
adays such as the ones we used to give when I was a 
girl.” 

We went, then, to Don Pedro’s, down a steep, un- 
even street, stopped every few feet by boisterous bank- 
rupts who wanted to know where a man could estab- 
lish credit for liquor. Don Pedro’s was a considerable 
house, for he was the village rich man. The open 
square which his buildings enclosed would have been a 


311 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


corral ordinarily ; but Don Pedro could afford a patio, 
and it was full of fragrant shrubs and barrel cacti,— 
a rude fountain pouring from an old iron pipe in the 


center. The entrance to this was a narrow, black arch-. 


way, in which sat the town orchestra playing. A pine 
torch was stuck by its pitch against the outside wall, 
and under this a man took up fifty-cent pieces for the 
entrance fee. We watched for some time, but nobody’ 
seemed to be paying anything. A clamorous mob stood | 
around him, pleading special privilege—that they 
ought to get in free. One was Don Pedro’s cousin; 
another his gardener; a third had married the daughter 
of his mother-in-law by his first marriage; one woman 
insisted that she was the mother of a performer. There 
were other entrances at which no guardian stood; and 
through these, when they found themselves unable to 
cajole the gentleman at the main door, the crowd plac- 
idly sifted. We paid our money amid an awed silence 
and entered. 

White, burning moonlight flooded the place. The 
patio sloped upward along the side of the mountain, 
where there was no wall to stop the view of great planes 
of shining upland, tilted to meet the shallow jade sky. 
To the low roof of the house a canopy of canvas 
drooped out over a flat place, supported by slanting 
poles, like the pavilion of a Bedouin king. Its shad- 
ow cut the moonlight blacker than night. Six torches 
stuck in the ground around the outside of the place 
sent up thin lines of pitchy smoke. There was no 
other light under the canopy, except the restless 
gleams of innumerable cigarettes. Along the wall of 


312 


LOS PASTORES 


the house stood black-robed women with black man- 
tillas over their heads, the men-folks squatting at their 
feet. Wherever there was space between their knees 
were children. Men and women alike smoked their 
cigarros, handing them placidly down so that the little 
‘ones might take a puff. It was a quiet audience, speak- 
ing little and softly, perfectly content to wait, watch- 
ing the moonlight in the patio, and listening to the 
music, which sounded far away in the arch. A night- 
ingale burst into song somewhere among the shrubs, 
and all of us fell ecstatically silent, listening to it. 
Small boys were dispatched to tell the band to stop 
‘while the song went on. That was very exciting. 

During all this time there was no sign whatever of 
the performers. I don’t know how long we sat there, 
but nobody made any comment on the fact. The audi- 
ence was not there primarily to see the Pastores; it 
was there to see and hear whatever took place, and 
everything interested it. But being a restless, practi- 
cal Westerner, alas! I broke the charmed silence to 
ask a woman next to me when the play would begin. 

“Who knows?” she answered tranquilly. 

A newcomer, after turning my question and the an- 
swer over in his mind, leaned across. 

“Perhaps to-morrow,” he said. I noticed that the 
band was playing no longer. “It appears,” he contin- 
ued, “that there are other Pastores at Dofia Perdita’s 
house. They tell me that those who were to have per- 
formed here have gone up there to see them. And the 
musicians have also gone up there. For the past half- 

313 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


hour I have been considering seriously going up there 
myself.” 

We left him, still considering seriously; the rest of 
the audience had settled down for an evening of pleas-_ 
ant gossip, having apparently forgotten the Pastores 
altogether. Outside, the ticket-taker with our peso 
had long since gathered his companions to him and 
sought the pleasing hilarity of a cantina. 

And so we strolled slowly up the street toward the 
edge of town where the whitewashed plaster walls of 
rich men’s houses give way to the undecorated adobes 
of the poor. There all pretense of streets ended, and 
we went along burro paths between huts scattered ac- 
cording to their owners’ whims, through dilapidated 
corrals to the house of the widow of Don Tomas. It 
was built of sun-dried mud bricks, jutting part way 
into the mountain itself, and looked as the stable of 
Bethlehem must have looked. As if to carry out the 
analogy, a great cow lay in the moonlight just beneath 
the window, breathing and chewing her cud. Through 
the window and the door, over a throng of heads, we 
could see candle light playing on the ceiling and hear 
a whining chant sung by girlish voices, and the beat of 
crooks keeping time on the floor with jingling bells. 

It was a low, dirt-floored, whitewashed room, raf- 
tered and wattled with mud above, like any peasant 
dwelling in Italy or Palestine. At the end farthest 
from the door was a little table heaped with paper 
flowers where two tall church candles burned. Above 
it, on the wall, hung a chromo of the Virgin and Child. 
And in the middle of the flowers was set a tiny wooden 


314 


LOS PASTORES 


‘model of a cradle in which lay a leaden doll to repre- 
‘sent the Infant Jesus. All the rest of the room, ex- 
cept for a small space in the middle of the floor, was 
packed with humanity: a fringe of children sitting 
cross-legged around the stage, half-grown-ups and 
girls kneeling, and behind them, until they choked the 
doorway, blanketed peons with their hats off, eager and 
curious. By some exquisite chance, a woman sat next 
to the altar, her breast exposed as she nursed her 
‘baby. Other women with their babies stood along the 
‘wall on both sides of her, except for a narrow, cur- 
‘tained entrance into another room where we could hear 
‘the giggling of the performers. 

“Has it begun?”’ I asked a boy next to me. 

“No,” he answered; “they just came out to sing a 
song to see if the stage was big enough.” 

It was a merry, noisy crowd, bandying jokes and 
‘gossip across each others’ heads. Many of the men 
‘were exhilarated with aguardiente, singing snatches of 
‘ribald songs with their arms around each other’s shoul- 
ders, and breaking out every now and then into fierce 
‘little quarrels that might have led to anything—for 
‘they were all armed. And right in the middle of 
‘everything a voice said: 

“S-s-sh! They are going to begin now!” 

The curtain was lifted, and Lucifer, hurled from 
‘Heaven because of his invincible pride, stood before 
‘us. It was a young girl—all the performers are girls, 
‘in distinction to the pre-Elizabethan miracle plays, 
‘where the actors were boys. She wore a costume 
‘whose every part had been handed down from immeas- 


315 


a) 


. 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


urable antiquity. It was red, of course—red leather— 
the conventional medieval color for devils. But the 
exciting thing about it was that it was evidently the 
traditional rendering of the uniform of a Roman 
legionary (and the Roman soldiers who crucified 
Christ were considered a little less than devils in the 
Middle Ages). She wore a wide, skirted doublet of 
red leather, under which were scalloped trousers, fall- 
ing almost to the shoe tops. There doesn’t seem to be 
much connection here until you remember that the 
Roman legionaries in Britain and in Spain wore leather 
trousers. Her helmet was greatly distorted, because 
feathers and flowers had been fastened to it; but un- 
derneath you could trace the resemblance to the Roman 
helmet. A cuirass covered her breast and back; in- 
stead of steel it was made of small mirrors. And a 
sword hung at her side. Drawing the sword, she strut- 
ted about, pitching her voice to imitate a man’s: 


“Yo soy luz; ay en mi nombre se ve! 
Pues con la luz 
Que baje 
Todo el abismo encendi——” 


A splendid soliloquy of Lucifer hurled from heaven: 


“Light am I, as my name proclaims—and the light 
of my fall kindled all the great abyss. Because I 
would not humble myself, I, who was the Captain Gen- 
eral, be it known to all men, am to-day the accursed 
of God. ... To thee, O mountains, and to thee, O 
sea, I will make my complaint, and thus—alas!—re- 


316 


LOS PASTORES 


lieve my overburdened breast. . . . Cruel fortune, why 
art thou so inflexibly severe? . ..I who yesterday 
dwelt serene in yonder starry vault am to-day disin- 
herited, abandoned. Because of my mad envy and am- 
bition, because of my rash presumption, gone is my 
palace of yesterday, and to-day finds me sad among 
these mountains, mute witnesses of my grievous and 
pitiful state. ...O mountains! happy art thou!— 
happy art thou in all, whether bleak and bare, or gay 
with leafy verdure! O ye swift brooks flowing free, 
behold me! .. .” 


“Good! good!” said the audience. 
| “That’s the way Huerta is going to feel when the 
Maderistas enter Mexico City!” shouted one irrepres- 


sible revolutionist, amid laughter. 
93 


“Behold me in my affliction and guilt contin- 
ued Luzbel. 

Just then a large dog came through the curtain, 
cheerfully wagging his tail. Immensely pleased with 
himself, he nosed among the children, licking a face 
_here and there. One baby slapped him violently, and 
the dog, hurt and astonished, made a rush between 
Lucifer’s legs in the midst of that sublime peroration. 
A second time Lucifer fell, and, rising amid the wild 
hilarity of the house, laid about her with her sword. 
_ At least fifty of the audience descended upon the dog 
and ejected him howling, and the play went on. 

Laura, married to Arcadio, a shepherd, appeared 
singing at the door of her cottage—that is to say, 
through the curtain... . 


317 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“How peacefully falls the light of the moon and the 
stars this supremely beautiful night! Nature appears” 
to be on the point of revealing some wonderful secret. | 
The whole world is at peace, and all hearts, methinks, 
are overflowing with joy and contentment. ... But” 
—who is this—of such pleasing presence and fascinat- 
ing figure?” i 

Lucifer prinked and strutted, avowing with Latin 
boldness his love for her. She replied that her heart 
was Arcadio’s; but the Arch-devil dwelt upon her hus- 
band’s poverty, and himself promised her riches, tow- ¥ 
ering palaces, jewels and slaves. q 

“I feel that I am beginning to love thee,” said 
Laura. “Against my will—I cannot deceive myself 

39 


At this point there was smothered laughter in the 
audience: “Antonia! Antonia!’ said everybody, grin-— 
ning and nudging. ‘‘That’s just the way Antonia left | 
Enrique! I always thought the Devil was in it!” re-~ 
marked one of the women. . 


But Laura had pangs of conscience about poor. 
Arcadio. Lucifer insinuated that Arcadio was se- q 
cretly in love with another, and that settled it. i 

“So that thou mayst not be troubled,” Laura said 
calmly, “and, so that I may be free from him, I shail _ 
even watch for an opportunity to kill him.” 4 

This was a shock, even to Lucifer. He ipl 
that it would be better to make Arcadio feel the pangs 


of jealousy, and in an exultant aside remarked with | 
318 


LOS PASTORES 


satisfaction that “her feet are already in the direct 
pathway to Hell.” 

_ The women, apparently, felt a good deal of satis- 

faction at this. They nodded virtuously to one an- 

other. But one young girl leaned over to another, and, 

sighing, said: 

“Ah! But it must be wonderful to love like that!’ 

Arcadio returned, to be reproached by Laura with 
his poverty. He was accompanied by Bato, a com- 
bination of Iago and Autolycus, who attended the dia- 
logue between the shepherd and his wife with ironical 
asides. By means of the jeweled ring that Lucifer had 
given Laura, Arcadio’s suspicions were aroused, and, 
when Lawra had left him in haughty insolence, he gave 
vent to his feelings: 

“Just when I was happy in her fidelity, she with — 
cruel reproaches embitters my heart! What shall I 
do with myself?” 

“Look for a new mate,” said Bato. 

That being rejected, Bato gave the following modest 
prescription for settling the difficulty: 

“Kill her without delay. This done, take her skin 
and carefully fold it away. Shouldst thou marry 
again, let the bride’s sheet be that skin, and thus pre- 
vent another jilting. To still further strengthen her 
virtue, tell her gently but firmly: ‘Sweetheart, this 
thy sheet was once my wife; see that thou dost carry 
thyself circumspectly lest thou, too, come to the same 
end. Remember that I am a hard and peevish man 
who does not stick at trifles.’ ” 


At the beginning of this speech the men began to 
319 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


snicker, and when it ended they were guffawing loudly. — 


An old peon, however, turned furiously on them: 


“There is a proper prescription!” he said. “If that — 
were done more often there would not be so many do- — 


mestic troubles.’ 


But Arcadio didn’t seem to see it, and Bato recom- | 


mended the philosophic attitude. 

“Stop thy complaining and leave Laura to her lover. 
Free thus from obligations, thou wilt become rich, and 
be able to eat well, dress well, and truly enjoy life. 
The rest matters but little. . . . Seize, therefore, this 
opportunity toward thine own good fortune. And do 
not forget, I beg thee, once thy fortune is made, to re- 
gale this meager paunch of mine with good cheer.” 

“Shame!” cried the women, clucking. ‘‘How false!” 
“The desgraciado!”” A man’s voice piped up: “There 
is some truth in that, sefioras! If it weren’t for the 
women and children we all might be able to dress in fine 
clothes and ride upon a horse.” 

A fierce argument grew up around this point. 

Arcadio lost patience with Bato, and the latter 
plaintively said: 

“If thou hast any regard for poor Bato, let us go 
to supper.” 

Arcadio answered firmly, not until he had unbur- 
dened his heart. 

‘Unburden and welcome,” said Bato, “until thou 
art tired. As for me, I shall put such a knot in my 
tongue that even shouldst thou chatter like a parrot I 
shall be mute.” He seated himself on a large rock and 


320 


ee ee ee 


LOS PASTORES 


pretended to sleep; and then for fifteen minutes Ar- 
cadio unburdened himself to the mountains and the 
stars. 

“Oh, Laura, inconstant, ungrateful and inhuman, 
why hast thou caused me such woe? Thou hast 
wounded my faith and my honor and hast put my soul 
in torment. Why dost thou mock my ardent love? Oh, 
thou steep stills and towering mountains, help me to 
express my woe! And thou, stern, immovable cliffs, 
and thou, silent woods, help me to ease my heart of its 
a a a 

Amid heartfelt and sympathetic silence the audi- 
ence mourned with Arcadio, A few women sobbed 
openly. 

Finally Bato could stand it no longer. 

“Let us go to supper,” he said. “Better it is to 
suffer a little at a time!” 

A perfect gale of laughter cut off the end of the 
sentence. 

Arcadio: ‘To thee only, Bato, have I confided my 
secret.” 

Bato (aside): “I do not believe I can keep it! Al- 
ready my mouth itches to tell it. This fool will learn 
that ‘a secret and a pledge to none should be en- 
trusted.’ ” 

Enter a group of shepherds with their shepherdesses, 
singing. ‘They were dressed in their feminine Sunday 
best with flowery summer hats, and carried enormous 
wooden apostolic crooks, hung with paper flowers and 
strings of bells. 


321 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


“Beautiful is this night beyond compare,— 
Beautiful and peaceful as never before, 
And happy the mortal who beholds it. 
Everything proclaims that the Son of God, 
The Word Divine made human flesh, 

Will soon be born m Bethlehem 
And mankind’s ransom be complete.” 


Then followed a dialogue between ninety-year-old, 
miserly Fabio and his sprightly young wife, to which 
all present contributed, upon the subject of the great 
virtues of women and the great failings of men. 

The audience joined violently in the discussion, 
hurling the words of the play back and forward—men 
and women drawing together in two solid hostile bod- 
ies. The women were supported by the words of the 
play, but the men had the conspicuous example of 
Laura to draw from. It passed soon into an argu- 
ment about the virtues and failings of certain married 
couples in El Oro. The play suspended for some time. 
Bras, one of the shepherds, stole Fabio’s 
wallet from between his knees as he slept. Then came 
gossip and backbiting. Bato forced Bras to share 
with him the contents of the stolen wallet, which they 
opened, to find none of the food they expected. In 
their disappointment, both declared their willingness to 
sell their souls to the Devil for a good meal. Lucifer 
overheard the declaration and attempted to bind them 
to it. But after a battle of wits between the rustics 
and the Devil—the audience solid to a man against the 
underhanded tactics of Lucifer—it was decided by a 


322 


LOS PASTORES 


throw of the dice, at which the Devil lost. But he had 
told them where food could be obtained, and they 
went for it. Lucifer cursed God for interfering in be- 
half of two worthless shepherds. He marveled that “a 
hand mightier than Lucifer’s has been stretched out to 
save.” He wondered at the Everlasting Mercy toward 
worthless Man, who has been a persistent sinner down 
the ages, while he, Lucifer, had felt God’s wrath so 
heavily. Sweet music was suddenly heard—the shep- 
herds singing behind the curtain—and Lucifer mused 
upon Daniel’s prophecy that “the Divine Word shall 
be made Flesh.” The music continued, announcing 
the birth of Christ among the shepherds. Lucifer, en- 
raged, swore that he would use all his power to the end 
that all mortals shall at some time “taste Hell,’ and 
commanded Hell to open and receive him “‘in its cen- 
ter.” 

At the birth of Christ the spectators crossed them- 
selves, the women muttering prayers. Lwucifer’s impo- 
tent raging against God was greeted with shouts of 
“Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Death to the Devil for in- 
sulting God!” 

Bras and Bato returned, ill from overeating, and, 
believing they were about to die, called wildly for help. 
Then the shepherds and shepherdesses came in, sing- 
ing and pounding the floor with their crooks, as they 
promised they would cure them. 


At the beginning of Act II, Bato and Bras, fully 
restored to health, were discovered again plotting to 
steal and eat the provisions laid by for a village festi- 


323 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


val, and as they went out to do so Laura appeared, © 
singing of her love for Lucifer. Heavenly music was — 


heard, rebuking her for her “adulterous thoughts,” — 
whereupon she renounced all desire for guilty love and — 


declared that she would be content with Arcadio. 

The women of the audience rustled and nodded and 
smiled at these exemplary sentiments. Sighs of relief 
were heard all over the house that the play was coming 
out right. 

But just afterward the sound of a falling roof was 
heard, and Comic Relief, in the persons of Bras and 
Bato, entered, carrying a basket of food and a bottle 
of wine. Everybody brightened up at the appearance 
of these beloved crooks; anticipatory mirth went 
around the room. Bato suggested that he eat his half 
while Bras stood guard, whereupon Bato ate Bras’s 
share, too. In the midst of the quarrel that followed, 
before they could hide the traces of their guilt, the 
shepherds and shepherdesses came back in search of 
the thief. Many and absurd were the reasons invented 
by Bato and Bras to explain the presence of the food 
and drink, which they finally managed to convince the 
company was of diabolical origin. In order to further 
cover their traces they invited the others to eat what 
is left. 

This scene, the most comic of the whole play, could 
hardly be heard for the roars of laughter that inter- 
rupted every speech. A young fellow reached over 
and punched a compadre. 

“Do you remember how we got out of it when they 
caught us milking Don Pedro’s cows?” 


324 


LOS PASTORES 


Lucifer returned, and was invited to join the feast. 
He incited them maliciously to continue discussion of 
the robbery, and little by little to place the blame upon 
a stranger whom they all agreed having seen. Of 
course they meant Lucifer, but, upon being invited to 
describe him, they depicted a monster a thousand times 
more repulsive than the reality. None suspected that 
the apparently amiable stranger seated in their midst 
was Lucifer. 


How Bato and Bras were at tast discovered and pun- 
ished, how Laura and Arcadio were reconciled, how 
Fabio was rebuked for his avariciousness and saw the 
error of his ways, how the Infant Jesus was shown 
lying in his manger, with the three strongly individu- 
alized Kings out of the East, how Lucifer was finally 
discovered and cast back into hell—I have not space 
here to describe. 

The play lasted for three hours, absorbing all the 
attention of the audience. Bato and Bras—especially 
Bato—received their enthusiastic approbation. They 
sympathized with Laura, suffered with Arcadio, and 
hated Lucifer with the hatred of gallery gods for the 
villain in the melodrama. Only once was the play in- 
terrupted, when a hatless youth rushed in and shouted: 

“A man has come from the army, who says that 
Urbina has taken Mapimi!” 

Even the performers stopped singing—they were 
pounding the floor with jingling crooks at the time— 
and a whirlwind of questions beat upon the newcomer. 


325 


INSURGENT MEXICO 


But in a minute the interest passed, and the shepherds 
took up their song where they had dropped it. 

When we left Dojia Perdita’s house, about midnight, 
the moon had already gone behind the western moun- 
tains, and a barking dog was all the noise in the dark 
sharp night. It flashed upon me, as Fidencio and I 
went home with our arms about each others’ shoulders, 
that this was the kind of thing which had preceded the 
Golden Age of the Theater in Europe—the flowering 
of the Renaissance. It was amusing to speculate what 
the Mexican Renaissance would have been if it had not 
come so late. 

But already around the narrow shores of the Mex- 
ican Middle Ages beat the great seas of modern life— 
machinery, scientific thought, and political theory. 
Mexico will have to skip for a time her Golden Age of 


Drama. 


(1) 


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